Terror Sweat posted:

This was the last animorphs book I ever read

Fritzler posted:

Make the pemalite ship their future base. I guess that will probably just remain the mall.

quote:

My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

It is not a human name. It is an Andalite name. Not that humans reading this are likely to know what an Andalite is. I am the only one here on Earth.

No, that is not completely true. There is one other. But he is not the Andalite he once was. He is now the host body to the Yeerk who holds the rank of Visser Three. Andalites call him the Abomination.

My duty is to someday destroy him.

I am only an aristh, a cadet. But as any Andalite who ever reads this will know, Andalite custom demands that I avenge my brother’s death. Elfangor was a warrior and prince. Visser Three murdered him.

I suppose I thought that Elfangor would live forever. He was fearless. Honorable. Perfect. It was a lot for a brother to live up to because I am not any of those things.

But the memory of my brother is why I look forward to the day when I destroy Visser Three. It is not simply a matter of duty. I cared very deeply for my brother.

And I am not the only one who wants to destroy him and the other Yeerks who have invaded Earth. Before he died, Elfangor gave five human youths the power to morph. As well as the truth about why they need this power.

Now these five humans are the only ones resisting the Yeerk invasion. Fighting to stop the Yeerks from enslaving the entire human race. Fighting to stop them from crawling into human brains and taking over all thoughts, actions, and memories.

They are also the only ones who know about me.

They are my people now - the only people I have here, so far from home. I am grateful for their friendship. I respect them, too, which might be more important. But Tobias is the only one I might consider a true shorm.

A shorm is a deep friend, someone who knows everything there is to know about you. The word comes from the Andalite’s tail blade, which looks something like what you may know as a scorpion’s tail. A shorm is someone you would trust to put his tail blade against your throat.

Even though Tobias does not have a tail blade - or hooves, stem eyes, and fur, the way Andalites do - he is almost one of us. Elfangor was his father, and, as strange as it is to think of, I am, in Earth terms, Tobias’s uncle.

But I think it is the fact that he is almost as unique on this planet as I am that makes us close.

Choosing life as a red-tailed hawk has set Tobias apart from everything he once knew.

We are both unique on this planet, and both very much alone.

There are times at night, as I search the dark sky for the home star, when I think about my real people, my family. I think about a life that might have been very different from the one I am living now, here on a distant planet, far from everything I once knew.

The others, Prince Jake, Cassie, Rachel, and Marco, all have homes and families. Only Tobias and I do not. Tobias lives in a meadow that is his territory. And I, until recently, did not even have that limited amount to call my own.

But now I have made my life a bit more comfortable. I have constructed a sort of scoop - what we Andalites consider to be a home.

Like any scoop, it is mostly open, with only a small area covered by a semi spherical roof. And in my case the scoop had to be very small so that I could fold the roof down and erase all visual evidence of it.

I had only a few things in the scoop. A World Almanac that my friends had given me. A photograph of a delicious cinnamon bun. Some human clothing. And one other thing only recently acquired. One very important other thing that has changed my life.

A television.

quote:

Television. Or as most humans say, TV.

Ah, yes: TV!

I never expected it to be so compelling. At first I thought it would only be useful. I would watch the behavior of the humans on the flat, square screen and listen to them speak. When I am in human morph, I need to be able to seem entirely human.

But it is so much more than merely useful. It is a window into the human soul. Technologically it is laughable, of course, but when you take into account the stunning array of programs, it rivals the cinnamon bun itself as the finest creation of human society.

Tobias, too, enjoys TV. He comes every day to watch a show with me. It is called The Young and the Restless. It is very educational, though I remain confused as to the cause of so much restlessness.

TV allows me to observe much more human behavior than I see at the mall. I am still wondering why humans put their mouths together. And why they seem to enjoy it. My first thought was that they were transferring food. But that seems not to be the case.

<Look, Tobias! Victor and Nikki are doing that thing again!> I pointed at the screen. <They do this very often.>

<Uh-huh.> His hawk eyes were trained on the little screen as Victor tightened his arms around Nikki. <It’s called kissing, Ax-man. Just like yesterday. And the day before. Kissing. Everyone does it. Of course, you need lips.>

<I know what it is called. And the role of lips is self-evident. I simply do not know why it is performed.>

<Ah. Well …> Tobias rearranged his wings noisily. <It’s definitely got a purpose. By the way, Marco’s heading this way.>
<Yes, I know,> I said. <I saw him two minutes ago, although he is trying not to be seen.>

<I heard him three minutes ago and saw him four minutes ago,> Tobias said.

Tobias is competitive when it comes to his senses. His hearing and sight are both better than mine. But I am able to look in all directions simultaneously, something he cannot do.

<You did not,> I said.

<Did so,> Tobias countered.

“Nothing likes the joys of daytime TV, huh?” Marco said, stomping up through the underbrush.

<Did not,> I said to Tobias.

Marco grinned at me. “Snuck up on you, didn’t I?”

<Yeah, right, Marco,> Tobias said tolerantly.

Marco laughed. He knew he had not surprised us. His claim to have snuck up on us was human humour. It is inexplicable, and Andalite readers should simply resign themselves to never understanding.

<And by the way, why are you not in school, young man?>

“Hey, I can’t be controlled by ‘the man’s’ arbitrary schedules. I come and go as I please. I am free. No one holds me down.”

<Teacher conference?> Tobias said.

“Yeah, they let us out early. So. What’s on the tube? Is this … Whoa! Who’s that? And does she always walk around wearing a towel?”

<Well, I’m hungry. I gotta go find a mouse. See you, Ax-man. Later, Marco,> Tobias said, and then he spread his wings and was gone.

“Watching a soap, huh?” Marco said, nodding his head.

<Soap?> I was confused. <No. This show is about humans who are both young and restless.>

Marco sighed. “Whatever you call it, it basically reeks, you know. I think it’s time I introduced you to some better programming, Ax. Buffy. Party of Five, maybe. Cops. South Park. Something, anything better than this. Although she is hot.”

<Yes, she is hot. This is why she often wears less artificial skin.>

“Yeah, well, I think you may have your cause and effect turned around there. Hey, you know what you need? A TV Guide.”
I bristled. <I understand how to operate the TV. Human technology is ->

“Take it easy!” Marco held up his hands. “Everything with you has got be literal. TV Guide is a little book that tells you what shows are on, and when. Come on, I’m bored. Let’s cruise.”

The notion of a guide to all that TV had to offer was attractive. But I would have to morph my human form to go into the town.

<Perhaps we could obtain cinnamon buns as well,> I suggested.

“Why not? Maybe we’ll run into Jake at the mall. He can buy.”

Every morph is a surprise. The last time I morphed to human, my own more or less humanoid parts, my head and arms, changed last. This time they were first.

I felt teeth growing beneath my lower face. In fact, my entire human mouth, consisting of a hinged jaw, teeth, tongue, and saliva-producing glands, was fully formed before lips appeared.

Lips form an open hole in the bottom third of a human face. The hole is used for eating and for forming mouth sounds. As well as kissing, spitting, vomiting, and belching.

Humans do a great deal with their mouths, most of it rather pointless.

My more numerous fingers disappeared, melting into ten stronger, thicker human fingers. My stalk eyes retracted into my head, leaving me unable to see behind me without either turning my head or turning my entire body.

My front legs shrivelled away, leaving me to perch precariously on my two hind legs. Of course, humans have only two legs, and no tail at all. So they go through life constantly on the verge of falling over.

My blue fur was the last to go, replaced by my own particular shade of human skin. Human skin comes in a variety of shades, none of them attractive.
At least not to me. If you are a human, you must find something attractive about your fellow humans. Humans who are young and restless are almost continuously in a state of attraction to others. When I was fully human - awkward, slow, and devoid of natural weapons - I put on my artificial skin. Humans call it clothing.

“I am ready,” I said, making mouth sounds. “R-r-r-ready. Red. E. Red. E.”

“How about putting on a shirt?” Marco asked.

“The men who are young and restless do not wear shirts. I am young. And I am occasionally restless.”

“Ax?”

“Yes, Marco?”

“Put on a shirt.”

I did. Then I folded my scoop down so that nothing, including the TV, would be visible. Not even to a human walking directly over the spot.

I walked with Marco out of the woods, across the farthest fields of Cassie’s farm, and toward the mall. It took a long time. Humans walk very slowly, a result of having only two legs and no tail. We crossed fields and then walked along a street - a path for cars. Then …

“Well, hello, Marco. Hey, Ax,” someone called.

Marco stopped short and looked around, turning his entire human head in order to see in different directions. “Who said that?”
“Here, Marco.”

I turned my human head to follow the voice. It was a truck painted with the word “FedEx.” And it was talking to us.

effervescible posted:

I just love that Ax has a photo of a cinnamon bun. Bun-zuh.

effervescible posted:

I just love that Ax has a photo of a cinnamon bun. Bun-zuh.

quote:

Humans do a great deal with their mouths, most of it rather pointless.

Tree Bucket posted:

FlocksOfMice posted:

Holy hell the writing in this one is incredible, I love this jaunty tone. Was there a reason this person only ghostwrote one?? They have a really good handle on Ax and very pleasant humor

ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:

There is, but it involves spoilers from this book. Epi suggested they'd talk about it after.

effervescible posted:

Who do you think got him the photo? As if Ax could get within photo distance of a delicious cinnamon bun himself and not be snarfing it.

Fuschia tude posted:

I'm going to imagine he just tore it out of a magazine he found somewhere in human morph and stuffed it under his clothes

freebooter posted:

I'm picturing it as being properly framed and everything.

Assuming it's Erek that's actually the FedEx truck, that's four books straight that he's been in - and I remember him definitely appearing in the next one too.

quote:

“What is this, Candid Camera?” Marco said.

“No. I believe it is a hologram,” I said. It was the logical explanation. Trucks - which are largewheeled vehicles used by humans to transport what they call “stuff” - do not have the power of speech.

And in any case, I recognized the particular qualities of that voice.

Marco made a disgusted face. “Hologram? Is that you, Erek?”

“Who else? Come on in. You’re not being watched.”

“There’s a woman right across the street looking at us!”

“She’s one of us, Marco,” Erek said.

Marco and I walked directly into the side of the truck. I stepped through the blue and red letters to see Erek King.

He was not in his usual guise as a human boy, since he was using his holographic emitter to create the truck. Instead he appeared as the Chee android he really is.

The Chee are a race of highly sophisticated androids created by a race called the Pemalites. The creators are gone. Only their creations remain, posing as humans.

The Chee are programmed with specific traits. Non-violence is one of those traits. And as much as Erek despises the Yeerks, and as powerful as he is, he must limit his anti-Yeerk activities to espionage.

He and his fellow Chee are quite effective in that area.

“A Federal Express truck?” Marco said. “Isn’t that copyright infringement?”

Erek formed a metallic grin. “They can call my lawyer: He was Moses’ law professor.”

The Chee are also very, very long-lived.

“I have news,” Erek said, serious now.

“Well, I didn’t think you set this up to invite us over for pizza,” Marco muttered.

“Let him speak, Marco,” I said gravely, touching his arm. Jack, who is one of the youngest and most restless, does this often, when he is trying to be understanding. Marco and Erek stared at me.

“The Yeerks,” Erek said finally. “We’ve learned they’ve used several fronts to purchase an animal testing laboratory and a meatpacking plant.”

“Huh?”

“A meatpacking plant?” I repeated. “Meeeeet? Meeeetpacking?”

“It’s where humans take animals - cows, pigs, chickens - to be slaughtered and then packaged for sale in the supermarket,” Erek explained.

“Are you telling me I should worry about where my next Big Mac is coming from?” Marco said.

“We’re not sure. We don’t really know what they’re doing with either facility. But we do know that they were purchased at about the same time, so we’re certain there must be a connection.”

“When did they acquire these facilities?” I asked him. “Fa-sill-it-tees.” It was a good word for mouth-sounds. So many syllables.

“About a year ago.” Erek shook his android head. “Unfortunately, we just learned about the purchase. The Yeerks are being extremely secretive about these projects.”

Marco sighed. “You know, Erek, bumping into you is never a picnic. Why do we care if the Yeerks want to make burgers for a living?”

“I don’t know,” Erek admitted. “Maybe you don’t care. But the Yeerks wouldn’t be this secretive if it were nothing to worry about.”

“You said they also had a laboratory,” I prompted. “What is its purpose?”

“Don’t know that, either.”

“Let me ask you this: How about if we just forget all about this and don’t tell Jake, and we all go to the mall and see how many cinnamon buns Ax can eat before he explodes?”

“I have already performed that experiment,” I said.

Marco nodded. “Okay, then I guess we go tell Jake and the others and launch off into some dumb mission that’ll end up with me screaming and running for my life. Sound good?”

“You could always go catch a burger instead,” Erek said brightly.

Marco shook his head bitterly. “They’re messing with the burgers, man. Now it’s definite: The Yeerks must be destroyed.”

quote:

I had planned on an afternoon and evening of watching TV. But Rachel assured me that on Tuesday there was never anything on.

“Nothing but lame sitcom reruns this week,” she said. “You’re not missing anything.”

<There are always These Messages,> I pointed out.

“These what?”

<The shorter shows that are displayed between longer shows. These Messages. They are often my favorites. “Zestfully clean! Zestfully clean! You’re not fully clean unless you’re Zestfully clean!” So much information condensed into so brief a format. So much emotional intensity.>

“You’re starting to scare me, Ax.”

In any case, Prince Jake had decided that we should act immediately to discover what, if anything, the Yeerks were doing at the animal testing laboratory and meatpacking plant.

We had all assembled at Cassie’s barn to prepare for the mission.

Cassie’s barn is called the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. She and her father offer medical treatment to injured nonhuman animals. Nonhuman animals filled cages all around us. Many of them were creatures I had morphed.

When I say we “all” assembled, I mean, of course, Prince Jake, our leader, a male who is distinguished by being taller than the others; Rachel, a female who is considered beautiful by humans and held in awe by her fellow Animorphs for her bravery; Cassie, the most knowledgeable and gentlest of the group; and Tobias, Marco, and me.

Six of us. All with morphing power but very little else to oppose the Yeerk invasion of Earth. It is an impossible situation, of course. But it has been impossible from the start. And we are not dead yet. If I were dead, I could hardly be expected to be communicating.

That was humor.

I believe.

<Meat? What do they want with meat?> Tobias demanded from his perch in the rafters.

“What, you’re asking me?” Marco said. “Like I know? Erek just said they have this lab where they do animal testing and this meatpacking plant. That’s all I know.”

“Well this is just stupid,” Rachel commented. “Meat? Animal testing? Why?”

“They’re cleverly infiltrating Mickey D’s to learn the secret of ‘special sauce,’” Marco said.

“Mayonnaise, catsup, and relish,” Rachel grumbled. “Big secret.”

“Poison the food supply?” Cassie suggested as she forced a medicine down the throat of a goose. “Kill a lot of people?”

<No,> I said. <If the Yeerks wished to kill a lot of humans they could simply use their Dracon beams from orbit to ignite the atmosphere and incinerate all life on the planet.>

Everybody turned to stare at me.

“Well. There’s a happy thought,” Marco said with what I believe is a tone of voice called “sarcasm.”

“We won’t get any answers sitting around here guessing,” Prince Jake said. He sighed. “Rachel? I am messed up in old lady Chambers’s class. Did you take decent notes?”

“Yeah. I can E-mail them over to you after we get back. But it’s like a whole bunch of stuff.”

Prince Jake sighed again and rubbed his eyes. “Okay look, let’s go get this over with fast or I’ll end up spending the weekend doing a makeup paper, which would seriously stink.”

“What exactly are we doing?” Cassie asked.

“We’re just going to take a look at this animal testing lab. See what’s what.”

<What is animal testing?> I asked.

“They get a bunch of animals together and give them quizzes from magazines,” Marco said. “You know, like ‘How Shy Are You?’ and ‘Is He Mr. Right?’”

I hesitated before responding. It was probably humor.

<I suspect you are making a joke. But I am not certain.>

“No one ever is,” Rachel said with a laugh.

“Animal testing labs are facilities where humans use species similar to our own to test the effects of drugs or whatever,” Cassie said. “They have to see if something is safe for humans, so they see first if it’s safe for animals.”

<That sounds prudent -> I began to say. But Cassie was not finished.

“They are also about as close to hell as anything humans create,” Cassie said.

“Uh-oh. Here we go.” Marco groaned. “Quick! Everyone find a tree to hug.”

“Look, I’m not a fanatic on this,” Cassie said. “I’m not against testing some new AIDS drug or a cancer cure. But there are labs where makeup is tested, only they test it in ways that cause the test animals to go blind. And even when they test for serious stuff, they should try to make the animals’ lives a little less horrible.”

“Yeah, get them TV,” Marco said. “No, wait, that might be cruel.”

Cassie’s eyes flashed and she bit her lower lip. Cassie is seldom angry. But I believe this was a display of anger.

Rachel saw the same thing. “Marco? Try: Shut up. Cassie? I love you, but this isn’t about saving the lab rats. We have a mission here. So let’s just go and get it over with.”

“Rachel’s right, we can debate animal testing some other day,” Prince Jake said. “Let’s just do this. In, out, and right back.”

<After These Messages.>

Bibliotechno Music posted:

Relevant to bunz chat:


I believe Ax would simply die of excitement.

quote:

We morphed to birds of prey. My own is called a northern harrier. Birds of prey are especially useful for observation because they have incredibly acute vision as well as excellent hearing.

Once morphed, we flew toward the animal testing laboratory.

The sun was going down, causing the wild effusion of colors, primarily red and gold that sometimes occurs at sunset or sunrise.

I was afraid of what I might find at the animal testing laboratory. Sometimes, when exposed to what humans consider science, I inadvertently offend my friends. I am often tempted to explain human errors. We flew over a large street called Broad, above a park called Willow, and beyond, toward an area where many buildings had transparent windows replaced by opaque sheets of wood.

Few humans were visible. But we saw a great deal of garbage. Garbage is an important humanproduct.

Marco kept grumbling about the online chat with the cast of The X-Files he was missing.

“Online” is a primitive human method of communicating in short, truncated, interrupted sentences with anonymous individuals.

Humans have several means of communicating in uninterrupted form with known persons, but many prefer “online.” Like much of human technology, it is inexplicable.

<Yeah, well, I’m missing precious time trying to figure out how quadratic equations work,> Cassie answered.

<Is that it? Is that the place?> Rachel asked. She was above me, to my left.

<That’s the right corner,> Tobias said. <Must be.>

<Doesn’t look too sinister. Yeah, I can see a sign. That’s it,> Prince Jake said. <Your basic office park.>

We flew to the edge of the large empty area where humans place their cars. The cars were gone. It was the time of day when humans leave their work and go home to consume food.

Several groups of young trees had been planted around the empty lot, so we perched among their branches.

Most of the buildings seemed empty. But one, set apart from the others, was surrounded by a tenfoot- high fence made of ingenious inter-looped metallic strands and topped with spirals of sharp spiked wire.

Across a small parking area sat a plain, two-story brick building, deep in shadows cast by the low slanting rays of the sun. Behind it, parallel to Broad Street, was undeveloped land thick with mature trees.

The windows of the building were all closed and protected by vertical bars. The doors were heavy steel. An armed guard sat in a structure that looked like a miniature human house, just behind a gate that was set into the fence.

<Security,> Rachel said with a derisive laugh.

<Some small morph would be the way to go,> Prince Jake said. <But what? Even a fly can’t get through a locked metal door.>

<And you know the Yeerks inside are going to be suspicious of any kind of animal,> Cassie added. <Even the ones they’re testing.>

<And we do not know …> I paused for a long moment, the way I had seen Victor Newman do. Whenever he does this, the TV camera zooms in on his face. <… what kind of animals are being tested in there.>

Five bird-of-prey heads turned to look at me. They stared at me the way Marco and Erek had earlier.

<Ax? You okay?>

<Yes, but I must maintain silence till we go to These Messages.>

<He’s been watching soaps,> Marco explained.

<Ohhhh. He’s doing a soap-take!> Rachel said.

<A what?>

<A soap-take. At least that’s what I call it. At the end of a scene. You know how the actors all just freeze and stare and wait for … well, for “these messages”?>

<Those are my favorites,> I said. <These Messages.>

ZAAP!

We all jerked in surprise.

Tobias said, <A rabbit.>

The animal was dead. I could see that its breathing had stopped.

<Electric fence,> Cassie said.

<Electric?> I laughed. <I doubt it very much. If this facility is run by the Yeerks, then it is certainly a shock-front force field. The fence is merely incidental, a deception. The force field will extend in an unbroken dome over the entire facility. A large energy expenditure.>

<He’s right,> Tobias said. <Look around. Dead sparrow over there. A rat. Too much roadkill.>

<Great,> Rachel muttered.

<That means the only way to get onto the grounds is past the security guard, right in the front door. And I don’t know how we’re going to do that.>

<Look!> Cassie said. A large white truck, probably thirty human feet long, passed the trees where we were hidden and pulled up to the gate.

I could not see the contents of the truck, although I was sure it contained some sort of “stuff.”

<I’ll listen in.> Tobias opened his wings and flew to a solitary tree just outside the fence.

The truck driver rolled down his window and presented the guard with a rectangular board with paper affixed. The guard scrutinized it for a moment before pushing a button in the little building where he sat. The gate opened with a rusty whine.

The truck started down the drive and disappeared behind the building.

<Let’s follow the fence around and see what he’s unloading,> Rachel suggested.

<Wait.> Tobias returned, landing on a nearby branch, and regarded us with his intense hawk’s eyes. <The truck’s loaded with chimpanzees. There’s no window between the cab and the back so I couldn’t actually see them, but I heard the driver say he had the six chimps they called for.>

<Chimps?> Prince Jake frowned. <Why chimpanzees?>

<Chimpanzees would maybe be used for some kind of behavioral research,> Cassie said. <If it was medical they’d probably use rats or rhesus monkeys.>

<Perhaps the chimps will be transferred to the meatpacking plant?> I asked innocently.

<Oh, gee, let’s hope not,> Prince Jake said.

<You never know,> Cassie said darkly.

<Yeah, where do you think they get jerky from?> Marco asked.

<The driver said something about being back around four tomorrow,> Tobias added.

<Six more chimps?> Rachel wondered.

<On their way to nothing good,> Cassie said thoughtfully. <But that’s our way in. We go as the chimps.>

<Can we acquire chimpanzees at The Gardens?> Prince Jake wondered.

<All we know is that they have “chimps” in that truck. But that may not mean specifically chimpanzees. I mean, the driver may not exactly be a primatologist. Could be rhesus monkeys, could be howler monkeys, could be bonobo chimps or some other subspecies, so ->

<Wait. Here comes the truck.> Rachel trained her eagle eyes on it. <Hey! It has a parking sticker from the university. Maybe that’s where it starts out.>

<Okay, so they come down the highway, get off across from the new mega-mall, come up Broad Street, right?> Prince Jake said. He was silent for a while, deep in thought. Then, <I think I’ve got an idea. Could work.>

<Is it an insanely dangerous, nearly suicidal idea?!> Marco asked brightly.

<Yep. Sure is.>

quote:

The others had spent the day in their human school. Tobias and I had spent the day watching TV, and then watching cars go along a road and into and out of a tunnel.

A tunnel is an underground road. Humans build them to pass beneath rivers, or to pass beneath roads or buildings whose presence evidently surprises them.

Planning ahead is not a great human virtue.

The road was lined with restaurants named Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Fuddruckers. There were also areas where automobiles were displayed for sale. And there was the store where one would not pay a lot for that muffler.

Prince Jake and the others arrived to meet us already in seagull morph, wheeling down from above. They were almost invisible against the clouds. White on white.

I had been in that same morph all afternoon, except for necessary demorphing. Tobias was in his own red-tailed hawk body, resting atop a nearby denuded tree hung with wires. Tobias could not manage to stand directly on the wires.

It had been a long day. Prince Jake had impressed on us the need for precise planning. And it had been necessary for me to demorph and remorph several times. In a Dumpster, which is a large box filled with stuff humans no longer want.

<We all set?> Prince Jake asked as he swooped down to join me.

<Yeah,> Tobias said. <If you need to demorph there’s a delightful Dumpster that Ax has been enjoying.>

<No, we’re good. Although … Whoa! Doritos!>

<Forget it. Empty bag. Ax already ate them. I’m going topside so I can give you all a heads-up.>

Tobias opened his wings and flapped away above the road, above the bright signs of restaurants that served delicious grease and salt.

Seagull morph is very useful since it is ubiquitous. Like the birds called pigeons, seagulls may go almost anywhere unremarked.

But there is a downside: The seagull has a relentless, obsessive interest in any food that has been thrown away. It is almost as distracting as being human.

<Everyone clear on the plan?> Prince Jake asked.

<Yeah. We pretty much hurtle to our deaths, right?> Marco said.

<Oh, quit your whining, you big baby,> Rachel said.

We waited near the Dumpster till we heard faint thought-speak coming from high above. <The truck is en route. Passing Church Street.>

<What was the time on the tunnel, Ax?> Prince Jake asked.

<Between four and seven of your minutes, Prince Jake,> I said. <We timed it repeatedly. With this degree of traffic we estimate transit time through the tunnel will be closer to seven minutes.>

<Ax? Don’t call me Prince. Everyone set?>

<Here it comes!> Cassie said.

The truck appeared, coming down the street toward us.

<We catch him at the light,> Prince Jake reminded us. <Everyone careful, okay? This could go bad on us pretty easily. So pay attention.>

<Especially if he doesn’t get stopped for that light,> Cassie said. <Come on, light, change! Change!>

<It will change from green to yellow in exactly four seconds, Cassie, and I am of the opinion that the light mechanism does not respond to thought-speak pleas.>

The traffic slowed as the light in the intersection changed to yellow.

Yellow is the color of warning. I do not know why.

The delivery truck we had seen the night before was behind a smaller green truck. I heard noises indicating that the truck driver had engaged the pitifully primitive braking system.

<Now!> Prince Jake said.

One by one we flapped and caught the air current.

My legs tucked beneath me, I opened my wings wider and began to rise as a gusty breeze hit me. Even in the midst of a dangerous mission, I am aware of the fact that when I fly I feel even more free than I do when running across an open meadow.

<Down, Ax! Now!> I heard Rachel say.

Angling sideways to tack against the breeze, I watched as first Prince Jake and then Cassie swept their wings forward to slow down. Marco, Rachel, and I were right behind them, killing airspeed as we headed for the rumbling truck. Tobias was plummeting from high above, ready to follow.

The roof was smooth. I slid into Rachel as the indicator light changed and the truck began to pick up speed.

I felt the uneven vibrations of the engine as the truck proceeded through the intersection. I felt the pressure of the wind as the truck accelerated.

Suddenly what had seemed fairly simple began to seem troublesome.

<Okay, the tunnel’s only two blocks away,> Prince Jake said, crouching to maintain his balance. <Start demorphing.>

<This is crazy!> Rachel shouted happily, squinting her beady seagull eyes as the truck’s grime swirled around us.

<I am slipping,> I said.

<You and me both. More fun every minute,> Marco complained.

My bird legs were essentially useless at holding on in the face of a powerful wind. I collapsed my legs, opened my wings, and shaped them so as to create a downdraft. The downdraft held me down. But still I was sliding toward the back of the truck.

I needed to morph. Cassie had already started, and the additional weight helped to stabilize her position.

I focused on the demorph. My feathers melted into a gelatinous coating that began to sprout my natural fur. My stalk eyes sprouted from the top of the gull’s small head. My beak shrank and withered to nothingness. The sliding stopped.

I looked back over the very close edge of the truck. A small car was nearby. The driver had apparently noticed the shifting mess of feathers, fur, and skin. His mouth hung open as he leaned forward to watch.

And just then, my tail sprouted to its full length.

WHAM!

The small car sideswiped a limbless tree used to elevate wires.

Screeeee!Cuh-RUNCH!

The small car came to a halt very suddenly, having run directly into a stopped car.

I turned my emerging stalk eyes forward again. I could see the dark arch of the tunnel just ahead.

Cassie was fully human already. The others were mostly human, with a dusting of white feathers here and there. Tobias was also mostly human, although for him it was no longer his normal form.

Suddenly, we were in the tunnel. Darkness closed around me. The yellow tile ceiling was only inches above me!

I had not realized it would be so close. No room! If I raised an arm, it would be scraped along that soot-blackened ceiling.

And if I raised my head?

Woosh!Woosh!Woosh!Wooosh!

The ceiling made a sound as we passed beneath it.

I fought down the claustrophobia that is a part of any Andalite’s heritage. There is sufficient room, I told myself. There is sufficient air. And yet I did not feel that there truly was enough air or enough space. I could feel the pressure of tons of earth weighing me down. We were underground. Soon we would be underwater!

I lay there, my legs curled up beneath me, tail extended flat, upper body pressed low, and stared at the tiles flashing by above me.

And the noise! My head was reeling from the cacophony of magnified, echoed noises of engines and brakes and radios and horns.

I lay still and concentrated on breathing. There was plenty of air. Plenty of room. Plenty. But I could not just lie there. We had to enter the truck. I would have to move.

“Okay, human chain time!” Cassie yelled to be heard above the constant shriek of noise.

It was the only way we had thought of to get into the back of the truck: by grasping hand to hand, hand to ankle. It is something humans, with their much stronger arms and more linear bodies, can do.

“Hold my feet and lower me over the back so I can open the door,” Cassie yelled.

“I will go first,” Prince Jake said.

“Not happening, Jake. You weigh twice what I do,” Cassie said. “Don’t distract me when I’m trying to be brave.”

Cassie shimmied to the back edge of the roof as Prince Jake and Tobias clutched her ankles.

Marco threw his arms around Prince Jake’s waist, Rachel around Marco’s. Lying beside this human chain, I braced with all four hooves against the slick roof and grabbed Prince Jake’s ankles. We had no real way to brace ourselves. We could only hope that our bodies, pressed flat, would create sufficient friction to resist the hurricane of wind.

“Lower!” Cassie shouted. “I can’t quite reach!”

Carefully, the human-Andalite chain of bodies inched forward until the only visible part of Cassie was her bare feet.

“I’m there!” she cried. Then, “No lock!”

“No luck?”

“No lock!” she yelled, and there came a rolling sound as the door slid up into the roof.

We hauled Cassie back up. Cassie flipped positions. Still on her stomach, she swung her legs over the back of the truck and held on to the roof’s edge as we clutched her wrists.

“Oh, man!” Cassie moaned.

“What?” Prince Jake demanded.

“Just ‘Oh, man!’” Cassie said.

From inside the truck came a loud cry. “EYAH! EYAH! EYAH! Hoo hoo hoo!”

I was unclear as to the meaning, but I suspected they were noises emitted by the chimpanzees.

Perhaps they were alarmed. I certainly was.

Cassie swung back and forth. And now another car was closing the distance behind us. It was dark in the tunnel, but still sufficiently light for the human in the car to clearly see that we were breaking into the truck.

The car was also close enough that if Cassie slipped, it would slam into her and most likely kill her instantly.

“Okay, let go of me!” Cassie yelled.

We released our grip.

“Aaaahhh!”

Thump!

“Owww! I’m okay. But owww!”

Cassie was inside the truck. Marco followed quickly. It was easier with someone inside to assist. The driver behind us did not notice me, but he definitely noticed the others as they swung down into the truck. The driver was smiling, making a sort of pumping motion with his fist and yelling.

I believe what he yelled was, “Waaahhhh-hooh! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

I am unclear as to the meaning. But I believe they were noises of approval. He cannot possibly have known our mission, of course, so I took it as a general approval of the notion of breaking into trucks. Or perhaps he merely enjoyed acrobatics.

The driver passed us by. And now it was my turn. Just one problem: I could not possibly support my own weight with my own arms and fingers.

I had to morph to human. And looking ahead, I could already see the far end of the tunnel.

We had used more time than we should have. I had only two minutes left.

quote:

The driver behind us did not notice me, but he definitely noticed the others as they swung down into the truck. The driver was smiling, making a sort of pumping motion with his fist and yelling.

I believe what he yelled was, “Waaahhhh-hooh! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

I am unclear as to the meaning. But I believe they were noises of approval. He cannot possibly have known our mission, of course, so I took it as a general approval of the notion of breaking into trucks.

quote:

I morphed to human. I morphed very quickly.

In human morph I had only two eyes. This made it easier to ignore the tile still flashing by at shocking speed.

As soon as I had strong human arms I shoved my lower body over the edge of the truck. But something was wrong!

Too heavy! I could not hold on!

Numerous hands grabbed at me, slipped, tugged, grabbed again.

“Ax! You’re still not morphed!”

My lower half was still mostly Andalite. Too large! Too heavy!

I felt my hands weakening. My fingers were being pried open by the weight. I would fall onto the road. Humans would drive their cars over me. Possibly their trucks filled with “stuff” as well.

I was no longer concerned with the tile overhead. I was much more interested in the pavement below.
“Grab his tail!”

“I have a leg! He’s morphing his leg! Ax, I … “

“EYAH! EYAH! EYAH! Ooog! Ooog!”

“Get him, get him, he’s slipping!”

“He keeps morphing!”

“Hoo hoo hoo hoo hah ah HAH HAH HAH HAH!”

“Please make every effort not to drop me!” I cried.

“Okay, I got a human leg here,” Rachel said.

Moments later, I was hauled inside the truck. Suddenly I felt no wind.

The truck emerged from the tunnel. I began to laugh.

“Are you okay, Ax-man?” Tobias asked.

“I am very well! Very, very well. Well-luh.” There was nothing funny about eluding death, but there was certainly joy. And relief.

“‘Please make every effort not to drop me.’” Marco repeated my plea, and now everyone laughed.

Rachel drew the door down. There was not much light, but there was enough. And the relative quiet was very enjoyable.

I looked around at the inside of the truck. On either side of the truck, eight-foot-wide, four-foot-tall cages held shaggy, brownish-black creatures with hairless, surprisingly human, faces. Two were hunched forward, clutching the bars and screeching. The others had flattened themselves against the far walls, grimacing and pounding the floor.

“No bananas.” Marco spread his hands wide in apology. One of the chimpanzees spit at him.

“We need to acquire them right away. Grab his foot, if you can,” Prince Jake suggested.

“You grab his foot,” Marco said. “I’ve been a gorilla. I know what our grandparents here can do when they get cranky.”

“Here.” Cassie had opened a sturdy plastic bin on the floor. “This’ll help.”

I began to demorph to Andalite form as Cassie cautiously held out a handful of grayish-brown pellets to one of the chimpanzees. The chimpanzee paused and seemed to sneer at her. The truck hit a bump. Cassie lurched forward and the chimpanzee drew back.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “These are for you.”

The chimpanzee regarded her solemnly. It seemed to be deciding whether or not the food was a trick.

One giant finger extended through the bars of its cage, pointing at Cassie’s palm. The creature’s skin looked like tan leather. I heard Rachel inhale abruptly. Marco shimmied backward an inch.

Beside him Tobias was demorphing to hawk form, watching the chimp intently.

“It’s okay,” Cassie repeated. “She’s not going to hurt me. Here, girl.” She reached forward slowly.

“Rachel? Get ready, in case we need fire-power,” Prince Jake warned.

“Not necessary,” Cassie said. “This girl’s just a sweetie. She’ll be fine. Won’t you, girl? No need to be upset. No.”

The chimp paused again, considered, pursed its lips, and grunted. Without warning, it grabbed Cassie’s wrist.

But Cassie is not easily bothered by non-human animals. Her other hand shot out and grabbed the chimp’s enormous hand. Cassie focused, and the acquiring trance calmed the animal.

But Cassie herself was not entirely calm. She looked troubled. I could not tell why. I only noticed that for several seconds she seemed almost to be carrying on a silent argument with herself.

But then she focused again and the chimpanzee’s eyelids drooped imperceptibly. Its muscles slackened. The food in its hand dropped to the floor as it slumped into the cage’s bars.

The rest of us made contact while we could. We acquired the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees are a species closely related to humans but slightly more attractive, and with a superior method of locomotion that allows them to operate as two-footed or four-footed creatures.

“Okay, ticktock. We must be almost there. Keys?” Rachel asked.

“Here they are,” Marco said, snatching a ring from a wall clip. “Let’s hope these chimps don’t attack as a good-bye gesture.” He smiled at one of the soon-to-be-freed chimpanzees. “Loved you in all those old Tarzan movies.”

“This stinks,” Cassie said. “We shouldn’t be turning them loose in a strange environment. We shouldn’t be … never mind.”

“Ah, I was wondering how long it would take,” Marco said with a derisive grin.

<Look, a day running around the streets has got to be better than whatever the Yeerks have in mind for them,> Tobias said.

Prince Jake leaned toward the first cage, ready to open the door. “Here we go,” he breathed, sliding the key into the padlock. “Freedom. At least till someone rounds you up.”

I felt the truck grind to a stop.

“Now,” Prince Jake said. “Ax? Stay out of sight. There may be cars right behind us.”

Cassie and Marco slid the door up.

And the chimpanzee we had morphed, faced with freedom, decided to urinate.

quote:

“Run away, already!” Marco yelled.

A truck was coming up behind us, slowing. Cars were alongside. Two children in one of the cars pointed at us and bounced up and down in their seats.

“Cassie, make them leave!” Marco pleaded.

Cassie scooped up a handful of food pellets and flung them toward the truck behind us. The chimpanzees merely stared. The driver of the truck leaned out of his window and said words I have been told are impolite.

<I’ve got this,> Tobias said. He flapped his wings furiously and launched himself toward the lead chimpanzee.

“Tseeer!” he screeched.

The lead chimp bounded away. The others tumbled after him. And now the truck driver behind us began to say words that were worse than impolite.

<Thought that might do it,> Tobias said smugly.

With a jerk that almost knocked me off my hooves, we were moving again.

Prince Jake yanked the door down, but before he did I saw one of the chimps climbing in the window of the truck while the driver exited quickly from the opposite door. A second chimp was bouncing maniacally on the roof of the car with the children. The children were screaming with joy.

Their mother was also screaming, but perhaps not with joy.

“Okay, into the cages and morph,” Prince Jake said. “Ax? How’s our time?”

<I estimate we will arrive at the laboratory in three of your minutes.>

“Ax, don’t make me tell you again: They’re not our minutes,” Marco said. “They are everyone’s minutes. Just plain old minutes and … oh guh-ross.” Marco wrinkled his nose disgustedly as he climbed into the nearest cage. “Someone call the manager. This cage is filthy.”

“You guys go ahead,” Cassie said. “I’ll hang back to lock the doors behind you.”

It made sense. Cassie was the quickest morpher. And someone would have to lock the cages from the outside.

I closed my main eyes, trying to focus despite the lurch of the truck and the realization that we were very short on time. I focused my thoughts on the image of the chimp. Then I felt it begin.

My front legs melted into my torso as my back legs swelled into the powerful limbs of the chimp. My hooves split open into five-toed feet. My Andalite arms grew bulky with muscles. My hands exploded into leathery flesh and thick fingers.

I felt two faint blips as my hearts stopped beating, absorbed into the pounding heart of the chimp. Inside me, bones crunched, blood pumped, as a mass of organs and systems transformed from Andalite to primate.

My stalk eyes had already retracted, disappearing into the top of the chimp’s head. Beneath the flattened nose that was similar to my own the chimp’s mouth emerged. It was large and mobile and full of teeth.

I turned my head to squint at the others in the murky light while wiry brown fur sprouted over most of my body.

“Urrgghh,” I grunted through the chimp’s mouth, grabbing the bars of the cage. I tried again to speak. <Interesting,> I said. <Though these bodies are nearly identical to humans, they are incapable of coherent speech.>

<Yeah, that’s why you never see chimpanzees running for president. They’re smart enough. They just can’t give a decent speech.>

Marco, of course. Humor, almost certainly. Although it occurred to me that I should perhaps check and see whether chimpanzees were accorded full citizenship.

I blinked my primate eyes and flexed my thick, powerful fingers. I felt … human. Like I was a four-foot-tall, almost two-hundred-pound, heavily muscled human.

And the mind? It was not exactly human, but it was similar. The same threads of curiosity, understanding, and emotion woven into a complex map. It was nothing like the single-minded hunger instinct of the shark, or the blind rush of sensory input that characterized the bat, for example.

Sentient? Self-aware? Able to hold abstract thoughts in its head?

Impossible to be sure. In morphing we acquire instinct, but instinct is less important when intelligence is more developed.

This mind had very little in the way of instinct. And I sensed a great deal in the way of intelligence.

The chimpanzee would be able to understand that when the cage was locked, it would not be able to escape. The chimpanzee would understand that scratching its head repeatedly would not open the door, but it would make it feel better.

The Andalite part of me suddenly felt a little ill. I knew that chimpanzees were very close to humans on Earth’s evolutionary scale. I later learned that ninety-seven percent of chimpanzee DNA is identical to human DNA.

Too close to human? Sentient close?

We have a rule - we Animorphs, I should say - that we do not morph humans or other sentient beings without permission. Had we just violated that belief?

Cassie circled the cages quickly to lock the cage doors. Then she ducked into the cage closest to the hook where Marco had found the keys. She reached through the bars, locked her own door, and tossed the keys on the floor beneath the hook.

“Hopefully the driver will think they fell off when he hit a bump,” she said.

Cassie morphed with shocking speed.

I decided to ask her about the chimpanzee. Cassie is often the person most willing to examine deeper philosophical issues.

<Cassie, I am concerned by this morph,> I said. <Is it sentient? Was it improper to acquire it?>

She said nothing. As though she had not heard me. Then she turned her dark chimpanzee eyes toward me. <Could it have given permission, do you think? Is it capable?> she asked rhetorically.

<No. I doubt that it could have understood the question,> I answered. <But you have not answered my question, Cassie. Is this creature sentient?>

Cassie said nothing and Marco laughed a thought-speak laugh. <You don’t get it, Ax. See, Cassie’s on her own private mission here. She wants to save the chimps. So her usual moralizing doesn’t apply.>

It was a harsh thing to say. But Cassie made no answer.

<A silence fills the room,> Marco said sardonically. <Animal lovers. Typical. They care more about animals than they do about humans. If we were doing this for some other reason, we’d have Cassie giving us a bunch of crap about not using sentient creatures. But she’s thinking she can maybe save some chimpanzees, so hey, if it’s for the sake of animals ->

<Let it go, Marco,> Prince Jake interrupted.

Cassie said nothing in self-defence.

I did not know what to think. I could only assume that humans do not believe chimpanzees are sentient. Clearly, if they did believe it, they would not be keeping them imprisoned and using them for experimentation.

Yes, that made logical sense, I reassured myself.

On the other hand, it is sometimes the case that humans do not make logical sense.

HIJK posted:

I like this author and its a shame she didn't get to come back. She gave the Animorphs a good edge.

Soup du Jour posted:

I love the detail that Ax finds chimpanzees more attractive than humans. Is it the fur?

Edna Mode posted:

I also like how they go out if their way to make very few of the alien races bipedal as well, or at least in the same way as humans.