CHAPTER 9

	Sarah stopped muttering to herself.  She stopped rocking back and
forth.  Slowly, unnaturally slowly, she turned cold, dead eyes on the
newcomer.  “Well, hello, Fivret,” she said in a toneless voice.  But that was
all.
	“Stand up, Udrak,” the newcomer said again.  He pulled the trigger on
the Dracon beam, and a thin beam cut a lock of hair off Sarah’s head, coming
dangerously close to her head wound.  “Stand up, or I aim about four inches
down and to the left.”  Four inches down and to the left placed the beam
directly in the middle of Sarah’s forehead.
	“Nice to see you too, Fivret,” she said in the same toneless voice.  “I
see the Andalites have their own traitors, too.  Let the Andalite and the girl
go, and I’ll stand up.”
	“My business is with you.  Stand up and abandon your host.  Now.”
	“The Andalite goes free.”
	<The Andalite will do no such thing,> Marco said.
	“I’m not surprised to hear you again, monkey,” Udrak said, looking
down at the wolves.  There was no sneer in her voice, no trace of the bravado
she had always previously shown; everything about her nature was
unnatural: lifeless, as if nothing mattered anymore.  Obviously, however, that
was not the case, if Udrak was petitioning for Sarah and I to be set free.
“And I don’t care which of the others the other wolf is.  But the Andalite boy
goes, or I will make it very difficult for you.”
	“Leave, Andalite,” the human-looking boy said.  “Now.”
	<Don’t go too far, though, Ax-man,> Marco added privately.  <We
might need you.  Just move out of sight.>
	<I’ll go,> I said.  <But the girl is unharmed.>
	“My business is with the Yeerk alone!  I really don’t care about your
pet!  Now go!”  the boy snapped.  I moved away, turning my back on them
all.  Once I was sure Sarah could not see me I stopped and turned.
	“What is going on?” she demanded suddenly, a ghost of her original
tone emerging again.  But it was hollow, uncaring.  “Who are you?  You are
not Fivret Two-Eight-Two-Three.”
	The boy reaimed the Dracon beam.  “Exit your host, Udrak.  Now.”
	“Who are you?” Udrak demanded again.
	The Dracon beam fired.  A piece of her collar burned off; the beam
probably singed her neck.  Udrak didn’t even cringe.  “Out, Udrak, or I
improve my aim.”
	Her eyes narrowed dangerously.  “You are not Fivret Two-Eight-Two-
Three.  I would know that jerk anywhere.  He’d have killed me by now,
instead of making threats about ‘improving his aim’, unless... ordered
otherwise?”  Then she shrugged.  Just shrugged.  “Ah, well.  Better die
through torture than starve to death.  I’m coming out.”  With that, she
climbed
heavily to her feet, straightened her shoulders, and blanked her expression.
Slowly, a tendril appeared out of her ear, then the Yeerk slid heavily from
her
ear canal to her shoulder.  From there it slithered a little forward before
slipping off her shoulder and falling, flipping as it did so, to the ground.
It
landed upside-down next to her foot.  The newcomer hurried forward to pick
up the Yeerk before Sarah blinked, once, twice, then sobbed.  “Udrak...” she
whispered, her eyes filling with tears.  She looked at the newcomer, her eyes
narrowing again, but this motion made the tears in her eyes fall, so that the
warrior-worthy expression did not have the affect it once did.  “Who owns
Erek King now, huh?” she demanded in a snarl.  “Who are you, you filthy
slug?”
	The newcomer - Erek King, an ally of ours - smiled then.  An honest,
friendly smile.  “No one owns me, Casey-Sarah,” he said.  “No one ever
did.”

CHAPTER 10

	Erek King belongs to a race known as the Chee.  The Chee are a race
of canine-like androids who are incapable of violence, but have infiltrated
the
Yeerks and are able to provide us with inside information.  Although he
appears human, he is actually an android that resembles a dog walking on its
hind legs.  He looks human because he is able to form a holographic image
around himself, so that he appears to have a smaller human nose, small
human eyes, human arms and legs, human ears and human hair, even though
in reality he has a short muzzle, larger eyes, paw-like hands and feet, almost
floppy ears, and no hair to speak of, just ivory-like plastic and steel-like
metal.
	Erek dropped the Dracon beam to the ground, kicking it over to Sarah.
“Here,” he said.  “We recharged it for you.  I’m sorry I threatened you like
that, but I don’t think Udrak, in the state he was in, would have responded to
anything less.”
	“He’s starving,” she replied in a quiet, hurt voice.  “He’s stressed out
and hungry and in pain like you wouldn’t believe.  He only has a matter of
hours before he dies, and he’s scared and tired and... and he just doesn’t
want
to deal with anything anymore.  This war is destroying him.”
	Erek nodded.  “I understand.  Now, I am going to reveal why I am
myself.  I’ve known you a long time, Sarah, and I know this will be a bit of a
shock, to say the least.  Only know that I regret not doing this sooner.
Please,
do not be frightened.”  With that, Erek shut off his holographic projector.
	Sarah’s eyes widened more than I would have thought they would be
able to.  “No.  Way.”  She was unable to say anything further for a few
moments.  “What are you?  Besides not the Erek King I thought you were?”
	“I am called a Chee,” Erek replied.  “The Andalites have asked me to
help them prove whether or not you and Udrak are telling the truth.  If you
are, no harm will come to you.  If not... they will deal with you as
necessary.
And I am still Erek King.  I’m just the original article now.”
	Sarah clenched her hands into fists and bit her lip.  “If you want to
prove it, it only proves you’re smart,” she said at last.  “Udrak wants me
safe.
If that’s what it takes to make him happy, then go ahead.  Just don’t hurt
him.”
	“I will make this as painless as possible,” Erek promised.
	Sarah looked ready to faint.  I re-entered the clearing, seeing no more
reason to hide. Sarah looked at me, her eyes filled with pain.  “You knew,”
she said.  She sounded hurt, as if she regretted putting any trust in me.  It
was
not a tone that I enjoyed; it made me feel ashamed, even though I knew I had
done the right thing.  “You knew who - and what - he was.  You knew, and
didn’t tell me.”  She tried to smile as I approached, ready to apologize, but
she did not succeed.  She did not give me a chance to explain, either.  “Thank
you.”  She took my hand in hers and squeezed it a little; if it offered her
comfort... after being witness to Udrak’s outburst so intimately, I would not
deny her it.  I know I would have desired comfort, if I had felt that sort of
shame first-hand.  Also, it eased my guilt at having misled her.
	The front of Erek’s head opened, pulling away from the rest of it.
Inside was a small, hollow chamber, and in that chamber, wrapped in fine,
hair-like wires, was a small gray slug, exactly identical to the one the Chee
held in his stubby-fingered, very paw-like hand.
	“Is that... Fivret?” Sarah whispered.
	“Yes,” Erek replied.  “He is fed Kadrona rays every three days from
the same power supply that runs my holographic generator.  But otherwise,
he is helpless.  The wires do to him as he would do to me - render him
helpless, and tap into his memory.”
	“But it doesn’t hurt?”
	Erek smiled again.  “Only his pride.”  He held Udrak close to Fivret,
before sliding him off his hand and into the small chamber.  More hair-like
wires sprouted from around the chamber.  Some poked into the Yeerk; others
simply wrapped around him, rendering him immobile.  Erek stood still,
allowing what information Udrak could provide to enter his database.  It only
took a moment for Erek to download every single memory Udrak had.
	“My,” he said.  “Oh, my.”
	<What is it?> I asked.
	Sarah squeezed my hand again.  “He knows,” she said in a quiet voice.
It was neither a guilty voice, nor triumphant one; she was merely stating the
truth - that Erek knew exactly where Udrak stood - so to speak.
	Erek looked at me.  And smiled.  “It seems we have an ally, Aximili,”
he said.  Then his expression darkened.  “But not for long,” he added.



CHAPTER 11

Tobias

	Erek returned Udrak to Sarah before we left her with Ax.  It was quiet
while the four of us returned to civilization.  Erek was surprisingly fast; we
made it back in three hours.  As I said, though, it was a very quiet three
hours
- Erek had a lot on his mind, and wouldn’t talk to us, and we let him.  We met
the others in Cassie’s barn, where they were waiting for us.  After Cassie and
Marco demorphed, though, the numb surprise of what had happened wore
off and Cassie hugged the living daylights out of Marco.  “It worked!” she
cried.  “You’re brilliant, Marco!”
	“And cute to boot,” he replied.  “Come on, Cassie, thank you very
much and all, but I’m having trouble breathing and Jake is getting jealous.”
	After we explained what had happened, Erek sort of took charge.
“Udrak is dying, quickly,” he said.  “He spent over two hours out of Sarah’s
head, and lost at least ten hours worth of Kadrona rays.  Worse, he refused to
accept my offer to replenish him.  Udrak has committed himself to dying,
which he will do by noon tomorrow.”
	“Oh, no,” Cassie whispered.
	“We finally come across a Yeerk who can help us, and he’s set on
suicide?”  Rachel shook her head.  “Geez.”
	“Sarah is scared,” Erek continued.  “She just won’t admit it.”
	“Sounds like someone else we know,” Cassie said in a kind voice,
looking pointedly at Rachel.
	“The problem with Sarah is that she cannot return home,” Erek said.
“She knows it as well as we do.  If she and Udrak turn themselves in, then
she will most likely be reinfested.  The only other possibility is that she
will
be killed.  Of course, she finds neither choice acceptable.”
	“I think I could get to like this Sarah,” Rachel said.
	“Sarah is angry.  Mostly frightened, but also angry.  She has a
surprisingly strong spirit, for one who has been a Controller as long as she
has been.  She would be a great asset to our cause.  She is willing - and able
-
to fight.  But what she needs is medical attention, nourishment, and a way to
go on with her life without the presense of Udrak.  Unfortunately, to be
frank,
she cannot do that.”
	“Cannot do what?” Marco asked.
	“Go on with her life without Udrak.”  Erek paused a moment.  “I
downloaded every memory Udrak had.  His entire family, nearly all the
friends he had, were killed as traitors because they refused to cooperate with
the Council of Thirteen.  One of his friends, though, survived.  That friend
was an ambitious, energetic creature, by the name of Esplin Nine-Four
Double-Six.  The prime twin.”
	“Oh my God,” Cassie whispered.
	<Visser Three,> I said, my voice low and toneless.
	Erek looked at me, then nodded.  “Yes.  Udrak and Esplin came from
the same three parents.  They stayed together a long time, until... well,
until
Esplin joined wholeheartedly into the war and Udrak hung back.  Esplin
found ecstacy in having a host, while Udrak found it horrifying.  They have
been on... less friendly terms... ever since.  Esplin believes Udrak to be a
traitor and a coward.  Udrak considers Esplin a traitor and a tyrant.”
	“I think I could get to like this Udrak,” Marco said.  “You got to
admit, he has a way with words.”
	<He called Visser Three a ‘karuyak dapsen dival tra’ earlier,> I said.
<Ax refused to translate.>
	“Yes, he did say that,” Erek laughed.  “It was very... unpleasant of him
to say such a thing.”
	“ ‘Karuyak dapsen dival tra’?  What’s that mean?” Rachel asked.
	“Wasn’t that lumber company the Yeerks tried out called ‘Dapsen’, or
whatever?” Jake pointed out.
	Erek chuckled.  “Think of the four most derogatory words you know.
Then triple their cruelty.  Your mothers wouldn’t wash your mouths out with
soap if they heard you say those words, and knew what they meant - they’d
make you eat three cakes of it.”
	“You kiss your mother with that mouth, Rachel?” Marco joked.
	Erek was serious again.  “What are you planning to do with Sarah?”
	Jake shook his head.  “Not a clue.  The best we could come up with
was putting her in an old root cellar, but... well, that’s kind of stupid.  If
we
can trust her, we need to.  Somehow, we have to help her.  And Udrak, if
he’ll let us.”
	Erek looked thoughtful.  “Perhaps....”
	“What?” Cassie prompted him.
	Erek frowned, looking down at the floor.  “Many of the others would
not approve.  But....”  He looked up, and grinned.  “She doesn’t like big ones
too much, because one attacked her when she was little,” he said.  “But, as a
whole, Sarah likes dogs.”
	It took a moment for us to catch up.  <You mean... have her stay with
you guys?  Live with the Chee?> I said.
	“It is a possibility,” Erek said.  “She’d probably like my ‘cellar’ a lot
better than the one you have in mind.”
	“I know I would,” Cassie said, grinning.
	“Do you think enough of the others would ‘approve’ to have Sarah
stay with you?” Jake asked.
	Erek frowned.  “That’s the trick.  I know those that have infiltrated the
Yeerks with me would jump at the chance to help you in any way.  Any way
we can, that is.”  He paused, closing his eyes.
	The Chee were programmed by their long-dead creators not to kill.
However, the Yeerks got ahold of a tiny, impossibly (by human standards)
powerful computer of the Chee’s creators, which we managed to steal.  With
it, Erek rewrote his programming.  He made himself able to kill to save us.
But in that... he didn’t kill.  We were in a battle, and losing.  It was a
miracle
the crystal-like computer got to him.  And he destroyed every one of the
Yeerks.  He didn’t kill them.  He annihilated them.  Massacred them.  I have
to kill to eat; it disturbs me, sometimes.  You try living with the fact that
every time you have to eat you have to kill a rabbit or snake or rat in cold
blood.  It’s either that or roadkill.  Or starve.
	It isn’t fair, I know.  But sometimes, when I don’t think I can stand
killing my own food anymore, I remember what Erek did.  And it doesn’t feel
as bad as the memory does.
	Erek changed his programming back.  He can’t kill anymore than any
other Chee.  But Chee are androids - they never forget.  I can’t remember
how many Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers Erek killed, or how each died.
But Erek will always remember, every last detail of it.  He wants to be able
to
help us unconditionally, but he has killed; he knows that he can’t deal with
any more memories of it.  He has accepted his place as merely an informant.
	That one memory helps us both accept ourselves, I guess.
	Erek continued as if the pause hadn’t happened.  I almost wondered if I
had imagined it.  “The others - I do not know how they will react, exactly.
Some will agree, simply because not to agree would most likely lead to Sarah
being killed.  Indirectly, it would be our fault, and in that would be against
our programming.  Others would not see it that way - they would believe it to
be your problem - like the Yeerks - and nothing to concern ourselves with.”
	“Sounds like we let Ax and Tobias deal with her again,” Cassie said.
She didn’t sound happy as she looked up at the rafters - I mean, at me.  “You
three could bring her to your home, right?  It wouldn’t threaten any of us,
and
we can just say that Tobias got his morphing ability back and acquired his
human form.  That’s true, at least.”
	<One thing on that, though,> I spoke up.  <Sarah wants to know my
name.  She wants to know all our names, if I read her right.  She believes
we’re going to take care of her, one way or the other, if we keep her at all,
and that she needs to learn our names if that’s how it’s going to be.>
	“Tobias is correct,” Erek said.  “Sarah and I have gone to school
together ever since I changed schools.  We were not really friends - we said
‘hi’ in the halls, and had a few classes together.”
	“Sort of like you and me, once upon a time,” Marco said.
	“Yes,” Erek agreed.  “Sarah is not very good with names; she doesn’t
remember them very well.  She deals with it by repeatedly asking someone
their name until she gets it right.  I should know.  It took her two weeks and
nine requests before she remembered my first name.”  He smiled.  “And over
a month before she finally learned to spell it right.”  His neutral expression
returned.  “She will not rest until she learns each of your names.  And,
unfortunately, all your names are very much human.”
	“While there’s still a chance she could be captured, we can’t let her
know who - and what - we are,” Marco said.  “Not a chance.”
	“Why not?” Cassie asked.  “If she can stay with the Chee, then... then
she’ll be safe, while we go on with our lives.  She’ll have someplace to stay.
If only we’d thought of it, and it could have worked, with David.”
	David was the name of the biggest mistake we Animorphs ever made.
He was just a new kid in school who wandered into the construction site
where Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, and I met Prince Elfangor, Ax’s brother,
my dad, and the Andalite who gave us the power to morph.  (Yes, I said
Elfangor was my dad.  I don’t know if he realized that before he died; I never
will.  All I know is that I received a letter on my last birthday saying that
he
was my father because, once long ago, he had run away from the war
between the Andalites and the Yeerks, to a planet called Earth.  There he got
married, settled down, startled life over as a human.  That is, until an all-
powerful alien made him return to the war, erasing all traces of his existance
on Earth, including my mom’s memories of him.  All that remained was me.
It would seem totally bogus, if I didn’t happen to know that all-powerful
pain-in-the-tailfeathers creature personally.  They call themselves Ellimists.
The Ellimist gave me back my morphing power in return for a favor - errand,
more like.  But I’m rambling, and I have a different flashback to get back
to.)
David found the blue box - the Escafil Device - that gives those who use it
the
ability to morph, intact and very much usable.  He made the mistake of
advirtising on the Internet about it.  Visser Three learned about it and came
to
get it.  We managed to save David and the box.  We used it to make him one
of us.  The thing is, having lost everything, he was very fragile.  As in, he
kind of cracked.  At least, I hope he cracked.  If he didn’t, then he was just
plain messed up to begin with, and we didn’t know it. He turned against us.
He killed a red-tailed hawk because he thought it was me, almost killed Jake,
attacked Ax, and stalked Rachel to scare her.  He did it all by using his
morphing ability.  Finally, he left us no choice; we led him into a trap,
getting
him stuck in a morph, like me.  But he was trapped as a rat.  Prey.  We set
him loose on a small island that was full of other rats.  As far as I know,
he’s
still there, alive and living as a rat.
	I wonder if he regrets eating bugs the same way I do rabbits.  Doubt it.
	Then it struck me, why Cassie might bring up David.  <Cassie,> I said,
<you’re not thinking what I think you might be thinking.  Tell me, please,
that
I’m wrong.>
	“Make Sarah one of us?”  Rachel sounded as skeptical as I felt.  “We
don’t know anything about her.  She was a Controller.  She’s marked by the
Yeerks.  The last thing we need is another David.  I’m not going through that
again.”
	“Sarah is nothing like David - or what I knew of him,” Erek said.  “She
is reclusive, yes, and very bright.  But, after that, I see no resemblance.
Her
forte is that she often sees what is hidden right in plain view.  She would be
a
very good addition to your side, as far as I know.  But I know her only from a
couple of classes.  She would have been a good student if she had any
interest in her work.  However, she seemed more interested in doodling in her
notebooks and writing short stories and bad poetry.”
	“Poetry?  Doesn’t sound too hostile,” Marco said.  “But bad poetry?
That’s a different story.”  He shook his head, turning instantly serious.  “We
rushed with David.  That was where we failed.  We can’t do that again.  Last
time, I said we shouldn’t make David one of us because we didn’t know him.
Of us, only Erek knows Sarah.  He knows her because he knows everything
Udrak knows, which is probably more than even Sarah knows.”
	Marco usually acts like a jerk.  It’s his way of dealing with the pressure
of saving the world, I guess.  But he has a habit of seeing what we overlook.
Not what’s right in front of us, necessarily, but something we’ve missed that
is very important.  Everyone’s eyes went to the android.
	Erek shrugged a little, shaking his head.  “I know Sarah, a little bit -
but I know what I know of her, and what Udrak knows of her.”  He looked
around at each of us.  “What I know is that she is smart but without focus,
and has a tendency of being insightful.  Though quiet, she can be stubborn
as well.”  He paused noticably.  “What insights Udrak gave me also favor
her.  Though she won’t fight someone who has decided for themselves, she
will never hesitate to speak her mind if she knows what she says will be taken
into consideration.  She is very loyal - ‘to a fault’ does not begin to
describe
it.  She is also respectibly brave - one only has to know that she held six
‘Andalites’ at bay with an empty Dracon beam with a badly burned shoulder
screaming pain in her head without so much as a grimace to know that.  She
is patient and quiet, but by no means harmless.”  I thought back to the
expression on her face as she pointed the Dracon beam at Marco’s head.  Her
jaw was clenched shut, her eyes narrowed and flashing; the expression had
been almost as focused, angry, and unyielding as mine is - when I’m a hawk,
that is.  Her arm had shaken, just slightly, obviously from the pain of
holding
the Dracon beam pointed at its target in spite of her injury.  Even balanced
in
a crouch,  half her hair burned off and shoulder hideously red from the burn
and the strain she was putting on it, one hand protecting Udrak, she looked
ready to take us all to keep him safe.
	Wait a minute.
	<How did Udrak know about that?> I demanded.  <He wasn’t in her
ear when she pointed the Dracon beam at us!  She only did it because he had
come out of her ear and she was trying to protect him from us!>
	The others turned to Erek, realizing that I was right.  Erek smiled.
“Yeerks have a good sense of hearing.  They might not be able to see, but
they are able to hear sonic pulses.  That’s how they communicate in their
natural state.  They can easily understand human speech - and thought-
speak, obviously - whether they are in a host or not.  Udrak has a good idea
what happened simply from what was said between you.  Blind creatures
have a tendency of being able to picture what is going on.  I could go over
every single word that was said between when he left her ear and returned -
though some of it is kind of mangled, as he began to panic when he found
himself drying out.”  He chuckled.   “He also read her memories afterward,
and knew exactly what she remembered of it.”
	I thought about it while Erek explained why he had said “drying out” -
I was glad I didn’t have to explain, because I didn’t quite understand it all.
From what I’d seen of Sarah, she was brave, loyal, and courageous.  More
than I can say about David, who turned out to be a backstabbing coward.  <I
change my vote,> I said when Erek was finished.  <If it ever comes to making
her one of us or getting rid of her, I vote that Sarah becomes an Animorph.>
	“We have to start somewhere, if we want to have more of us to fight,”
Cassie said.  “David was a mistake.  Nobody had any idea about him.  But
there’s no way Udrak could lie to Erek.  If Sarah’s all that, then she’s about
the best person for the job.”
	“That’s just it,” Marco said.  “This Sarah is just too good to be true.
We’re the underdogs in this war - sometimes literally, I might add.  We’re not
supposed to be that lucky.”
	“How does she feel about the Yeerk Empire, Erek?” Jake asked, his
voice giving away nothing.
	“What she knows of it first-hand, or from Udrak?”  Erek didn’t wait
for an answer.  “She doesn’t hate the Yeerks.  The only thing that gives her
life meaning, stability, is a Yeerk.  He is all that matters to her, because
he is
all she can trust in.  He is the most real thing in her life.  He is all she
has.
No, she does not hate the Yeerks.”  He paused again.  “What she hates is the
war.  She hates the consuming greed of most Yeerks for more than the simple
pleasures of sight and mobility, the ones who wish to rule the universe - and
especially the ones who see it as their destiny.  She hates the whole
political,
greedy nature of the war.”  A small smile showed on his holographic face,
one of respectful admiration.  “She does not hate the Yeerks.  But, given the
chance, she would fight.  She would gladly fight.  She would not fight for the
human race, however - not as you do.  She would fight for the Yeerks - those
Yeerks who, like yourselves, are caught in the middle of this war that they
want no part of.  She would not fight for any one race - she would fight for
the innocents, the ones caught in the crossfire.”  His smile became something
different, more... pleased.  As if he had won some major award or contest.
“I, personally, would be honored to give her sanctuary.”
	“Goody,” Marco chuckled.  “We got ourselves a regular Batgirl.
Supergirl.  Spidergirl.  Robin Hood-ette.  Forget David - the last thing we
need is another Rachel.”  But his decision was obvious.  “I guess I’m with
Bird-boy.  Sarah becomes one of us - but only if there is no other choice.”
	“She isn’t too much like Marco, from what I can tell.  So I guess I’m
for it, too.”  Rachel crossed her arms.  “If it comes down to life or death,
Sarah’s an Animorph.  Period.”
	It was Cassie, Rachel, Marco, and me.  Jake and Ax were the only
ones left, and Ax wasn’t there.  But I’d seen how he hadn’t made Sarah let go
of his hand when she took it, when she needed comfort.  Something was
happening between them; I don’t think Ax had noticed, but Sarah had a
respect for him.  Somehow, within less than twenty-four hours, he had
become about as close as she had to a best friend as she probably ever had.
	Twenty-four hours?  It hadn’t even been a day since we’d discovered
Sarah, and we had already decided to make her an Animorph rather than let
her die?  Hadn’t that been exactly what it’d been with David?
	No.  David we’d decided to make one of us in less than half a day.
Half a day?  Heck, we’d decided in an hour!  And we knew less than nothing
about him.  Thanks to Erek and Udrak, we knew more about Sarah than she
would probably admit about herself.  Possibly more than she knew about
herself.  I thought back to what she had said, just before Udrak had taken her
over, and whatever had happened to make Udrak lose it for a short time.  “I
don’t handle fear well,” she had said.  But I also thought again about her set
jaw, narrowed, flashing eyes, and the barely noticable shaking of her arm as
she very convincingly bluffed six ‘Andalites’ who could easily have killed her
with a hand-held Dracon beam that was dead that the very weight of, much
less the position of her arm, made her arm hurt terribly.
	Yes, we knew more about Sarah than she did herself.
	“Ax hasn’t voted,” Jake said, “and I feel bad about making this
decision without him.  But I’m with you guys.”  He sighed, as if the very idea
of taking on a new Animorph was the most exhausting thing he could
imagine.  “Sarah stays with us.  For all practical purposes - which, at this
point, does not include letting her know we are human - she is one of us, and
will be treated, within reason, like one of us.  I don’t think I need to
explain,
but if I do - we don’t tell her who and what we are.  No names.  No human
appearances except Tobias and Ax.  We don’t let her anywhere near our
houses.  Not until we’re certain she can handle the pressure.  And, if there
is
no other choice, and everyone believes she can take it, she becomes one of
us.  That means unanimous vote.  Cassie - we’ll need you to get the morphing
cube.  If we have to make Sarah one of us it might be on very short notice.
Erek, would it be possible for you to keep the morphing device?”
	“No one will question it,” he said agreeably, then grinned.  “Not as
much as they will when I suggest we shelter her.”
	<Can’t you just tell them?> I asked him.
	“Showing you the underground ‘kennel’, as you once so rightly called
it, was one thing.  No one could change what I had done.  Once you had seen
it, there was no changing that fact.  It was immediate and short-term.
Keeping Sarah with us is long-term and how long it will be is indefinate.  For
all we know, it could be between a few minutes to a hundred years.  This is
not a rash decision that can be dealt with on a long-term basis.  It is a
long-term project that must be considered carefully.”
	“In other words,” Marco said, “us knowing about it is one thing
because the Chee don’t have to deal with us when we’ve got morning breath
and a bad hair day.  Caring for a human probably won’t be as much fun for
them as taking care of their dogs is.”
	“Not so much as being as much ‘fun’, as... fulfilling, I’d say,” Erek
said.  “But, otherwise... yeah, I’d say that about covers it.”
	Jake sighed again, and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge
of his nose in an obvious sign of a major headache.  “One thing at a time,” he
said.  “If things take a turn for the worst, we’re agreed Sarah becomes one of
us.  First, though, we have to deal with keeping her safe.  So we got to get
her
to the Chee as soon as possible.”
	“I can’t just bring her home with me,”  Erek said.  “It’s not like she’s a
stray.  For one thing, she lives only three blocks away.  It’s not like she
can
go walking straight there, right in the open.  The other is that the others
would
be willing to brake me to spare parts if I were to pull a stunt like I did
with
you.  I have to clear it with them, and have a full vote on it.  That could
take
up to a week.  For the vote, that is.  We don’t tend to meet all at once, for
cover, but in emergencies we can do it.  But still, that’ll take a day or two,
at
least.  Everyone has to be notified, and arrive, or send their vote....”
	“So we still need a place for Sarah tonight, in other words,” Marco
said, once again summing up Erek’s words.
	Erek nodded miserably.  “Right again,” he agreed.
	“Root cellar?” Cassie asked skeptically.
	“Root cellar,” Rachel confirmed.

CHAPTER 12

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

	Sarah did not hold my hand after Erek returned Udrak to her.  She
instead put him up against her ear, letting him return to her head.  It still
disgusted me to see her allow the foul creature to do that, but I remembered
what Erek had told me before he and the others left us.  “Udrak hasn’t lied to
you,” he had said.  “Everything he has said is true.  Take it easy on him,
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill - he isn’t doing well, and he deserves any respect
you can spare him.  Trust them, if you can’t do anything else.”
	I tried concentrating on his words, rather than on Udrak re-entering
Sarah’s brain, but I couldn’t.  I didn’t want that Yeerk to live.  I didn’t
want
any Yeerk to live.  They didn’t deserve to.
	But then I thought back to what Udrak had said.  What Erek had told
me was true.  I had lost my brother to Visser Three; Udrak had lost his entire
family, all his friends, but for what might remain of one friend who had
become Visser Three.
	Did Udrak’s shame include the Visser?  I thought of my friends, back
on my home planet.  I thought of my friends, the Animorphs.  If one of them
became a great and powerful enemy, if one of them became like Alloran-
Semitur-Corass had become, the Andalite that had become the Andalite-
Controller, Visser Three?  Would I have felt ashamed of that?
	Yes, I realized.  I would be ashamed of myself, for not finding a way
tosave them.  For not being able to stop what had happened.  I would be
plagued forever with the guilt of wondering, if I had done this little thing,
said
this one word, would it have been any different?  Could I have kept them
safe?
	“A penny for your thoughts, Aximili.”
	I looked down at Sarah.  She looked very tired; her eyes had a droopy
appearance, as if her eyelids were too heavy for her, with odd shadows
beneath them.  Her forehead was wrinkled because her brow was lowered
heavily over her eyes.  She was sitting on the ground again, propped up on
her elbows, but her shoulders weren’t straight and strong  and yet relaxed, as
they had been before; she seemed to droop between them, as if they were the
only things keeping her from laying prone on her back.  Her strength seemed
to have left her completely, with only exhaustion to take its place.
	“I doubt that.  Come on.  You can tell me.”
	<No.  It is nothing.  Nothing you would wish to hear.>
	She put her weight on her left arm, so that she could rub one of her
temples with the fingertips of her right hand.  “I’ll listen to anything right
now, friend,” she sighed.  “Anything.”
	I scoffed at the ground with one of my hooves.   I admitted.
	“No wonder you looked disturbed.”  She sat up, then patted the
ground beside her.  “Come on.  Take a load off.”  I did not understand.  I
suppose my expression showed this.  “Lay down, relax.  I don’t bite.”  She
saw my hesitation.  She closed her eyes and sighed.  “Ax,” she said, her voice
revealing the obvious strain she was under, “Udrak is dying.  I can feel him
dying.  He’s crying, Ax.  He isn’t talking anymore because he’s hurting too
badly.  I can’t feel his pain anymore than he can feel mine.  But I can hear
him, Ax.”  She shuddered.  “He’s going mad, Ax.  Lack of Kadrona rays.  He
has hours, if that.  Can you imagine it?”  She sobbed; tears stung at her
eyes.
“Can you imagine, starving until you’ve got mere hours?  The hopelessness,
the pain of it?  I can’t feel it, Ax, but I can hear him.  I can’t tune him
out.
Just... just talk, okay?  Just keep talking to me.  I need something else to
listen to.”  She rolled on her side, resting her head on her crossed arms, and
closed her eyes.  “I... I just need someone else to listen from now on....”
	I looked down at Sarah with my main eyes, to the sky with my stalk
eyes.  With one pair of eyes I looked toward my home, where I had friends
like me, where my family knew I lived, but that I had brought nothing but
disgrace to them.  With the other, I looked at a pair of creatures, one I
could
see, one I could not; neither who could face their families, if that were even
possible; neither who were truly home.  Neither who would ever truly have a
home.
	One was a Yeerk.  One was a human.  I am an Andalite.
	And yet, the three of us were alike.  We were alone.
	Or were we?
	I jerked a little at a strange sound.  I looked down with all four eyes,
where Sarah lay on the ground.  She was making the strange sound, one that,
after a few moments, I recognized.  It was one that I had heard when I posed
as Prince Jake many months ago, when he had been taken over by a Yeerk
and we were forced to hide him.  It had come from his parent’s room; it
turned to be his father.  When I asked Marco about it the next day, he said it
was called “snoring”, something that some humans do when they sleep.
	She was already asleep?  Most humans took much longer to fall asleep;
most Andalites do, as well.  I know I do.
	I sighed; I, too, was very tired.  It had been a very long day, and there
were still many hours left until tomorrow.  Walking carefully to be as quiet
as
possible, I walked to Sarah’s side, then lay down.  She stirred, opening her
eyes, and smiled slightly.  “Hey there, Andalite,” she mumbled.  She pushed
herself off the ground just enough to edge forward, then rested her head
against my flank.  “Night,” she muttered, closing her eyes again.  I smiled in
spite of myself - it wasn’t quite three o’clock in the afternoon; there were
still
three hours of strong daylight left.  She fell asleep just as quickly as
before,
but unlike most humans, her  face did not lose its expression; she still
appeared disturbed, tense.  She did not snore this time, but that is not to
say
she was silent; she spoke in her sleep, unfinished sentences and short,
incomprehensible words.
	I knew what it was to be alone.  I also know what it is, having to sleep
with nightmares.  <Sleep well, Sarah,> I said, though I couldn’t tell whether
she heard or not.  I was surprised at how tired I felt.  I closed my main
eyes,
leaving my stalk eyes open to watch over us all.  <Sleep well, Udrak,> I
added.  It felt like a great weight was lifted from my shoulders; before I
knew
it, I, too, was asleep.
	That, as it turned out, was a great mistake....
	.... and the start of the strangest hour of my life.