The Andalite Chronicles

<Sure,> I said. <We bluff. We tell those Gedd-Controllers up there that we’ve come to fix the computers. Then we fly that sorry Skrit Na ship away.>

I wanted to sound casual. Nonchalant. The way the fighter pilots always sound when they are describing some terrifying battle. Like it was all no big deal.

Arbron stared at me through red jelly Taxxon eyes. <Okay. Lead the way,> he said.

Arbron and I slithered out from beneath the ship’s cradle and motored our rows of Taxxon needle legs up the ramp to the ship itself. Just a pair of bored Taxxon technicians going to work. Totally calm.

Or as calm as any Taxxon, even a Taxxon-Controller, can ever be. There is simply no way to explain the awful hunger of the Taxxon. It is beyond any hunger you’ve ever imagined. It is constant. Like a screaming voice in your head. Screaming so loud you can’t think.

Every living thing you see or smell is just meat to you. You hear beating hearts and smell rushing blood and the hunger almost takes over your body.

And when someone is injured … when there is blood spilled … well then, as I knew personally, the hunger is all but impossible to resist.

I had come within a haunch hair of eating an injured Taxxon myself. Not something I wanted to remember. But not something I’d ever forget.

<Don’t hesitate,> I advised Arbron as several Gedds turned to blink curiously at us. <Look like you’re on your way to work.>

<Shut up, Elfangor,> Arbron said harshly.

Again I felt the chill of fear. Something was horribly wrong. But there was no stopping now. I pushed rudely past a Gedd who was in my way.

The Gedd-Controllers looked resentful. But they had no reason to suspect us. We were Taxxons. They had to assume we were Taxxon-Controllers. We looked like we were there to work. No reason for them to be at all suspicious.

Except that one of them was.

One of the Gedd-Controllers stood right in front of us, seemingly unimpressed. He spoke in Galard, the language of interstellar trade. It sounded hard on his Gedd tongue, but I could understand him.

“Rrr-what arrrre you doing herrrrrre?”

If it was hard for the Gedd to make Galard sounds, it was almost impossible for me, with a Taxxon’s mouth and tongue. But I couldn’t use thought-speak. I might as well announce that I was Andalite. I had to try to speak Galard with a three-foot-long Taxxon tongue.

So I tried. “Sreeeee snwwweeeyiiir sreeeyah!”

Which was not even close to being the sounds I’d wanted to make. What I had meant to say was “computer repair.” But the Taxxon’s tongue is so long, that it would be hard even if I was used to using a mouth to make sounds.

The Gedd stared at me with its tiny yellow eyes. “Rrr-use rrr pad!” He pointed furiously down at a small computer pad attached to his wrist.

<It’s some kind of translator,> Arbron said. <Some primitive version of our own translator chips. Let me do it.>

He reached with one of his weak, two-fingered Taxxon hands and pressed several buttons. From the pad came a disembodied voice, speaking Galard.

“Computer repair.”

The Gedd snorted angrily. “Rrryou Taxxon wearrrers think you rrrown the planet! Arrrogant as Horrrk-Bajir!”

Arbron and I shoved past him into the Skrit Na ship. Unfortunately, it was so cramped and low that we could barely drag our massive bodies inside.

The bridge of the Skrit Na ship was identical to the Skrit Na ship we’d boarded to rescue the two humans. There were two cocooned Skrit glued into a corner. They wouldn’t cause any trouble. They didn’t look ready to hatch into Na just yet. And there was an active Skrit, what Loren had described as a giant cockroach, scurrying around almost brainlessly, polishing and cleaning.

There were no Na that I could see. Aside from the Skrit, the bridge of the ship was empty.

<So far, so good,> I muttered. <I’m going to close the hatch. We’ll demorph, power up, and be off-planet before they know what’s hit them.>

<Yeah. Okay,> Arbron said. <Ready?>

<Yep.> I focused on my breathing, trying to fight the raging Taxxon hunger and my own fear. <Okay, do it!>

Arbron punched the pad to close the hatch door. It slid shut and made a snug vacuum seal SHWOOMP!

I focused all my thoughts on demorphing. I wanted out of that Taxxon body. The two of us could barely move in the cramped bridge, let alone fly the ship. The idiot Skrit kept banging against me, unable to find a way to go around.

I demorphed. I shed that vile Taxxon body as fast as I could. I felt the awful hunger weaken and my own Andalite mind rise above, freed of the Taxxon’s instincts.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

The Gedds were pounding on the hull. “Rrrrwhat arrrre you doing? Open rrrup!”

I ignored the noise and punched the engine power. The main engines began to whine as they powered up.

And then I realized it. Arbron was not demorphing.

<Arbron, what are you waiting for? Demorph!>

Arbron didn’t say anything.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

“Rrrr-open up! Powerrr down rrryou fool!”

<Arbron! What are you up to? Demorph!> I yelled. I guess I hoped that yelling would make it happen. But I already knew. He stared at me through those shimmering red jelly eyes, and I knew. More quietly, almost begging, I said, <Come on, Arbron. Demorph.>