The answer, p.8
The Answer,
p.8
So, here it is, I thought. The moment of truth. The Visser would buy it or not. The silence stretched on. Too long.
Visser One had smelled the rat.
Visser One hissed.
“But, Visser, the Gleet BioFilter …”
“Very simply,” Tom said calmly. “Order the Taxxon to eat the Animorph girl. If the Taxxon is an Animorph in morph, he will refuse. If not, then the girl — and any hidden morphs concealed on her person — will be consumed. Thus, we will be sure of both.”
The Taxxon did not hesitate. It reared up, opened its lamprey mouth, and slammed itself greedily down, teeth bared.
“No! No!” Cassie cried. “Nooo!”
The Taxxon’s mouth ripped Cassie apart, chewed arms and legs, spilled organs out onto the deck of the Pool ship, and finally lifted off her head in one fatal bite.
The voice — really very like Cassie’s — screamed, cried, begged for mercy.
Tom waved good-bye. “If you are there by some chance, little brother Jake, bye-bye!”
I saw it all from inside the illusion, for illusion it was. “Cassie” was Erek, the Chee.
Tom had betrayed us, as I knew he would. He believed we were all hiding on the true Cassie. He believed he had beaten the true Cassie, and that she had submitted in order to make her capture seem real.
He believed he had now fed her, and me, and all of us, to the hunger-mad Taxxon.
But the Taxxon was no more a Taxxon than “Cassie” was the real Cassie.
Tobias in Taxxon morph gorged on an illusion. The Cassie hologram was a horror film directed by Erek. Bit by bit he replaced illusions of Cassie with illusions of empty space. Until, gory bit by gory bit, she was gone, consumed by the Taxxon who kept at it until not even a bloodstain was left on the ship’s deck.
It would never have fooled a true Taxxon — even Chee holograms and force fields cannot project taste. But Tobias acted his part to perfection and the two Yeerks, Visser One and Tom, bought the performance entirely.
Erek, now visibly nothing but deck, rolled away, out of range of any sudden movement by Visser One that would reveal his presence.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. And in any case, I knew what his answer would be. I had left him no choice. Any failure on Erek’s part would have been the trigger for my ordering a slaughter. Chee programming chose the less violent path.
“Yes, Visser,” Tom said, barely able to conceal his glee.
He thought he had it all in his grasp, right then. His voice gave nothing away, but I knew the Yeerk inside my brother’s head was triumphant. Ecstatic!
He had killed me. Killed all of us. And now, he would take possession of the Blade ship. Then, if my guess was right, he’d wait while Visser One annihilated General Doubleday’s troops, and then, when Visser One was least expecting it, Tom’s Yeerk would strike a surprise blow and destroy the Pool ship itself.
Tom’s Yeerk would be left in command of the heavily armed and very fast Blade ship — almost surely the hiding place for the morphing cube. Tom’s Yeerk would take his new command into Zero-space to reemerge far, far away with a hard core of loyal followers and the power to morph. He wouldn’t have to stay behind to face the likely arrival of the Andalites. He would be safe and in control.
It was a neat plan. And if I had trusted him I’d be dead, along with all my friends.
Marco said,
Ax answered for me.
Visser One helped us out inadvertently by ordering the Hork-Bajir guards to
The Hork-Bajir led the Taxxon away. But neither Tobias, nor my friends hiding on his morphed form, had any reason to fear. The Hork-Bajir guards were Toby and twelve of her people.
My brother left the bridge of the Pool ship. He would be taken by Bug fighter up to the Blade ship in orbit.
The Pool ship lifted off, a slight vibration being the only evidence. Off the earth to the safety of the skies, or so Visser One believed.
Five Animorphs, twelve free Hork-Bajir, and one Chee were now aboard the Pool ship, unsuspected. The plan was on track.
I couldn’t answer.
The Pool ship rose from the earth, bigger than anything human eyes had beheld in the skies. Up and up, but not so high yet.
I could see little of the room with my limited senses. Impossible to understand large spaces with fly eyes. So I searched out relative darkness. I searched out a space where the air motion was minimal. I had used the fly morph many times before and I was good at interpreting the fractured data of its senses.
I landed upside down on an almost horizontal surface and hung there for a moment, trying to assemble a picture of the Pool ship’s battle bridge.
It seemed to be an oval in shape, though I couldn’t be sure. There were dozens of Controllers, mostly Hork-Bajir, with a scattering of humans. They sat or stood before glowing display screens. Others stood at attention, awaiting the visser’s orders.
The visser paced back and forth, nervous or just feeling a rush of anticipation, I couldn’t guess which.
“There, Visser!” a human voice sang out. “Human military forces on the move.”
“We have a preliminary estimate. Seven hundred and nine humans. Twelve of the tracked ground vehicles the humans call tanks, Visser. Nineteen rotary wing vehicles. Threat analysis: minimal.”
I could see the main view screen. It was upside down from my perspective, and a dizzying array of weirdly distorted colors, but I could make it out. I could see what Visser One could see: General Doubleday’s forces, moving forward through the burned debris below, still moving forward, following orders, despite the fact that their target, their objective, the Pool ship now hovered a thousand feet over their heads.
A Hork-Bajir voice jumped in. “They were deployed to attack us on the ground, Visser. They seem at a loss.”
“Now showing fixed wing aircraft on approach,” another human voice said calmly. “Nine total.”
“Visser, I recommend allowing the Bug fighters to take out the aircraft. We can use our Dracon cannon on widest possible dispersion and destroy all the ground forces with a single sustained shot.”
Where were Erek and Ax? Surely it had been long enough. Surely the Chee had penetrated Yeerk security by now. We should have control of navigation. I didn’t want to bother them, they were surely doing their best. But neither could I watch wholesale slaughter of the troops on the ground and do nothing.
“Dracon cannon configured, Visser. Permission to fire?”
If they fired the main Dracon cannon on widest dispersion it would not kill the men on the ground quickly. It would kill them slowly. They would cook. They would grow warmer and warmer, as the diluted Dracon energy heated them up. Hotter. Hotter till some began to pass out. Others would go crazy as their brains fried. And then the men, those already dead and those who still clung to life, would burn.
“Visser!”
“Visser … the display … I believe there are morphs down there with the attacking human troops.”
The viewscreen veered wildly, rushing in for a close-up like someone taking home video.
I clearly saw a lioness loping along, a squad of soldiers hurrying beside it, weapons at the ready. I could see faces as they looked up fearfully at the Pool ship. Some stopped to fire up at us.
Another morph, a rhino came lumbering into view. It was comical. Pitiful. Men with guns and a handful of fugitives from a zoo trying to attack a ship that could blow asteroids out of the sky.
Nervous, toadying laughter all around. Someone reported that Tom had reached the Blade ship. The Blade ship was reporting readiness to join the attack.
“Permission to fire Dracon cannon?”
I couldn’t be patient any longer.
At that same moment a new report reached the bridge. “Visser! Casualties in engineering!” a Hork-Bajir voice said.
“No, Visser, all engines are nominal. All systems are nominal.”
“Firing,” the neutral voice reported.
The shot caught the hindquarters of the rhinoceros. For a horrifying moment the front legs kept running. The creature — a girl named Tricia — toppled forward, dug its horn into the dirt, rolled over, and was dead.
I felt sick inside. I should do something. I should stop this. That was the auxiliary Animorphs down there on the ground dying. Burning.
A moment’s pause while Marco queried the Chee and the Andalite.
It was a death sentence. Three minutes. More than enough time for the sharpshooters on the bridge. Too much time.
They fired.
If I demorphed here I’d be seen. Nowhere to hide. I’d be shot. Killed. Accomplish nothing.
Couldn’t die. I was in charge. It was my plan. No time for gestures. Win, that was all I had to do: Win.
Visser One said,
“We’re taking fire, Visser. The fixed wing aircraft have launched missiles.”
The Hork-Bajir voice spoke again. “Confirm casualties in engineering, Visser. One Hork-Bajir. He appears to have suffered some sort of animal attack.”
That news made the visser sit up and listen. He spun his stalk eyes around to the speaker.
I used the moment to push off and swoop down. I landed between his stalk eyes. Ax had admitted it was one of the very few spots on an Andalite’s body that he cannot easily see. I rested very still on Visser One’s head. The stalks were like snakes to me, impossibly thick, but flexible, bending this way and that, high over my head. The eyes floated up there, glaring daggers at the Hork-Bajir crewman.
Then, another human-Controller reported in, “Visser, we’ve contacted engineering and they are responding that everything is normal. The wounded Hork-Bajir was a disciplinary matter.”
Of course: Someone down in engineering, one of my friends, had morphed and was now passing as a Yeerk crew member.
“Visser, that appears to be the last of the morphs.”
“Dracon cannon configured, Visser.”
“Firing.”
“They will suffer one hundred percent casualties in thirty seconds.”
Finally, “Visser, the helm is not answering.”
“Helm is unresponsive, Visser!”
He bounded over to the helmsman’s position and seized the controls himself. I had a perfect view.
I could practically see the wheels turning in his brain. I could almost see the thought process, as one by one the clues fell into place.
He still hadn’t quite gotten it, but he was getting there. He still had not figured out that Tom had betrayed him.
“Visser, we appear to be heading toward a low orbit.”
Visser One raged.
“Yes.”
It was almost too perfect. Visser One was actually going to invite Tom to approach. He was all but sealing his own doom.
Visser One said.
He was trembling, I could feel it so clearly. I savored his fear and rage. I had watched, helpless, while he murdered James and his people. Watched while he gloated.
Now I wanted him to feel afraid.
And silently I replied, Yes, it does.
I hunkered down and held on as Visser One raced through the Pool ship. Hork-Bajir flocked to him, fell into step behind him. Down gloomy hallways, across open, hangarlike spaces, and then cramming into seemingly endless stairwells. Descending, always descending.
I was beginning to understand why it had taken Marco, Cassie, Tobias, Ax, and Erek so long. Engineering was quite a distance from the bridge.
Three corridors converged together at a pair of wide blast doors. Hork-Bajir- and human-Controllers pressed close together.
“Visser, there are surely some of our own people still alive in —”
The visser spun, whipped his Andalite tail, and decapitated the Hork-Bajir who had interrupted him.
He was clear. And if he wasn’t, no one was going to say anything.
I spotted Toby, recognizable only by virtue of the fact that she was a bit shorter than the average Hork-Bajir female. Presumably her companions were in the crowd as well.
I called to my friends.
I launched, flew down and away, zipping through rapidly shuffling legs. The visser’s troops were forming up, strangely reminiscent of the kind of array you’d have seen in the Revolutionary War. They might as well have been redcoats ready to fire volleys.
