Falling …

<Demorph!> I screamed at myself.

Even as I was falling, I was demorphing. If I was going to die, I’d die an Andalite, not some disgusting, cannibalistic worm.

WHUUUMMMPPPFFF!

I hit the ground. I hit it hard. The sides of my Taxxon body burst open from the impact. And in a flash, the other Taxxons were on me.

<Demorph!>

But I couldn’t possibly morph quickly enough. Red Taxxon mouths drew back and rose up high, plunging straight down into my shattered flesh.

The pain of the fall had been dulled by sheer shock. But this pain … this pain I felt. I have never known anything so terrible. In my darkest nightmare I’ve never even imagined …

<Ahhhhhhhhhh!> I screamed. But just as loudly, I screamed, <Demorph!>

It was a race. A race to see whether I would die before I could demorph. Again and again they ripped at me. But now my Taxxon flesh was shrinking away from them. It was changing. Becoming some strange, new meat.

It would all depend on how the morph happened. If my head emerged too soon, the Taxxons would simply rip it off. I didn’t need my head. I didn’t even need my legs.

I needed my tail.

If any Andalite in all of history needed his tail, I needed mine. Right NOW!

<Ahhhhhhhhhh!> The pain was unbearable. I was delirious, unable even to think, to focus, to keep track of what was happening to me.

It wasn’t going to work! I had been wrong to hope. Wrong to imagine I could survive.

But then … I felt some distant part of me move.

And I sensed a shudder pass through the ravenous Taxxons.

With what was left of my Taxxon eyes, I saw it appear … all the way back at the end of my Taxxon body.

A bright blade! My tail!

I slashed! Missed!

But it made the Taxxons back away. And while they were reconsidering, my legs grew long and strong. The last of my bleeding worm body shrank and hardened. I heard bones growing inside me.

And then I could see. I could see again!

The Taxxons came at me again, rushing at me, bold with hunger. But now the situation had changed.

Oh, yes, the situation had definitely changed.

I aimed, I slashed! I aimed, I slashed! I aimed, I slashed!

<Come on, you filthy worms! Come on! Come ON!>

And suddenly, even the Taxxons had decided they didn’t want to eat me. Instead, the Taxxons I had cut were set upon by the rest.

Through my stalk eyes I saw the sub-visser and his Hork-Bajir soldiers looking down and laughing.

The cold voice of the sub-visser said, “Kill him. Shoot the Andalite scum.”

The Hork-Bajir soldiers raised their weapons and sighted on me.

TSEEWWW! TSEEWW!

Dracon beams singed the air above me and melted the dirt at my feet. I couldn’t outrun them. I had to hide! But hide where?

Oh.

I dove back into the Taxxon feeding frenzy. Their sluggish, sloppy bodies pressed in all around me. It was sickening, but it gave me cover.

“Go in after him,” the sub-visser ordered. “Cut him to pieces!”

Six huge Hork-Bajir leaped down from the train track. There was no way I could defeat six Hork-Bajir warriors. I was exhausted, on the edge of collapse.

But there was one last desperate hope. The kafit bird.

Once you do a morph, the DNA stays with you. Once you’ve morphed a creature, you can morph it again. And I needed wings as much as I’d needed my tail.

I squirmed between the huge worms, keeping away from their mouths. Not that they wanted to fight an Andalite right then.

And as I felt the Taxxon flesh pressing in around me — smothering me, but at the same time hiding me from the Hork-Bajir — I morphed again. I shrank. I grew smaller and smaller.

“Back, you Taxxon hogren kalach!” the Hork-Bajir yelled in a mix of Galard and the Hork-Bajir language.

The Taxxons began to pull away, driven back by slashing Hork-Bajir wrists and elbows. I was in the open. A Hork-Bajir was standing over me. He was looking right down at me.

Had I finished morphing?

No time to worry. I would either fly … or die.

I opened what I hoped were my six pairs of kafit wings. I spread them wide. I flapped hard.

And I flew.

Up off the ground. Up from the dirt. I flew!

I flew inches above the Hork-Bajir. I flew over the sub-visser, who was now screaming in rage at his soldiers. “Shoot it! Shoot it!”

“But the Taxxons may be hit!” one of the Hork-Bajir protested.

“I really don’t care, shoot! Shoot! Kill it! SHOOOOOT!”

But it was too late. I was in the air. I raced as fast as my wings would take me, back down the stinking tunnel toward daylight. I saw the brown-gray light ahead, and I flew toward it as if my life depended on it.

I exploded from the tunnel into the open with the outraged cries of the sub-visser ringing in my ears.

<I made it!> I cried to no one but myself. <I made it! I’m alive!>

I flew at the kafit bird’s top speed back toward the spaceport. Somewhere back there were Alloran and Arbron. Somewhere back there the Time Matrix still waited to be discovered. There was still a mission and the hope of returning safe and alive to the Jahar.

And … there was life. Life! Life never feels so sweet as when you’ve come right up against death.

Then I saw it.

It was descending the last few feet into a large ship-cradle. It was unlike any other craft at the spaceport. Unlike anything any Yeerk had ever designed or built.

The Jahar!

The Jahar was landing.

It was impossible! There was no one aboard the Jahar but the two humans. How could it be landing? Why was it landing?

I soared as high as I could and saw that Yeerks in all shapes and sizes were rushing to meet the amazing ship.

They clustered around, many with weapons drawn. Looking back, I saw a mag-lev train come tearing at top speed from the Taxxon mound. I knew in my heart that Sub-Visser Seven was on that train.

It took several minutes for the docking clamps to be fitted to the alien craft. And more minutes while the Yeerks trained every weapon they had on the one small ship.

The mag-lev train arrived, slamming carelessly into two slow-moving Gedds. Out stepped Sub-Visser Seven. He had only four of his original six Hork-Bajir with him. I guess the other two had paid the ultimate price for failing their commander.

The hatch of the Jahar appeared. It opened, and out stepped a creature no Yeerk had ever seen before.

It walked on only two legs.

It held up its hands, and said, “Hey, hey. Relax. You can put down the weapons. I’m not here to fight. I’m here to trade.”

Chapman!

He realized that the Yeerks did not understand him. So with his hands he pretended to be handing them something, and then receiving something from them.

Sub-Visser Seven strutted to meet the alien. He laughed cynically. “It wants to trade,” he said. “This strange creature wants to trade. So. What do you have to trade, alien?”

Neither Sub-Visser Seven nor Chapman had understood a word the other had said. And yet, they understood each other perfectly.

Chapman kept his hands raised and made a human smile. Then, very slowly, he stepped back into the shadowed interior of the ship. And when he reappeared, he was shoving someone before him.

It was Loren. She was bound with wire. Chapman pushed her viciously. She fell to the ground before Sub-Visser Seven.

“That’s what I have to trade,” Chapman said. “A whole planet full of … that.”