I spent my days hunting. Sometimes I would ride the high hot winds and watch the meadow.
Sometimes I would sit in a tree and watch till some unwary creature ventured out. Then I would swoop down on it, snatch it up, kill it. Eat it while the blood was still warm.
Days were easier than nights. During the day I was hunting almost all the time. It keeps you busy, because most of the time you miss. It can take quite a few tries before you make a kill.
Nights were worse. I couldn't hunt at night. The nights belong to other predators, mostly the owls. At night my human mind would surface.
The human in my head would show me memories. Pictures of human life. Pictures of his friends.
The human in my head was sad. Lonely.
But the human Tobias really just wanted to sleep. He wanted to disappear and let the hawk rule. He wanted to accept that he was no longer human.
Still, at night, as I sat on my familiar branch and watched the owls do their silent, deadly work, the human memories would play in my head.
But other memories were there, too. I remembered the female hawk. The one who had been in the cage. I knew where her territory was. Near a clear lake in the mountains.
So one day I flew there. To the mountain lake.
I saw her down on a tree branch. She was watching a baby raccoon, preparing to go for a kill.
She would have to be very hungry to go for a raccoon, no matter how small. Raccoons are very tough, very violent creatures.
As I watched, unnoticed by her, she swooped.
The raccoon spotted her. A quick dodge left, and the hawk sailed harmlessly past. The baby raccoon ran for the edge of the woods. His mother was there.
No hawk was crazy enough to go after a full-grown raccoon. That was not a fight the hawk was going to win.
She settled back on her branch.
I floated overhead, waiting to see if she would spot me. And waiting to see what she would do when she did notice me. I had to be cautious. She was a female, and females are a third bigger, on average, than males.
51 Suddenly I saw fast movement in the woods.
A chase!
It was always kind of exciting watching a kill, even by another species. It heightened my own hunting edge.
The prey was running awkwardly on its two legs. Running and threading its way through the underbrush. It stumbled and hit the ground hard. It seemed very slow to get up. It ran again.
I could hear gasping breath. It was weakening. The prey was squealing. Loud, yelping vocalizations.
Prey often squeal.
The predator moved on two legs also. But these legs were built for greater speed. It had blades growing from its arms. It used the blades to slash the bushes and weeds. It cleared its way through them like a lawn mower chopping down tall grass.
Lawn mower?
No. Something else. Salad Shooter. Yes, that's what Marco called them.
Marco? The image came to my mind. Short. Dark hair. Human.
It hit me like a lightning bolt. Suddenly I realized: This prey was a human.
Why should I care? It was prey. That was the way it worked: Predator killed prey.
NO! It was a human being.
"Help! Help!" That was the vocalization. It meant something. "Help! Help me!"
The predator was very close. In a few seconds he would make his kill. The predator was powerful. The predator was swift.
Hork-Bajir.
"Help me, someone help!"
I don't know how to describe what happened next. It was like my entire world flipped over.
Like one minute it was one thing, one way, then, boom, it was something totally different. It was like opening your eyes after a dream.
The prey was a human being. The predator was a Hork-Bajir. This was wrong. Wrong! It had to be stopped.
I stopped.
52 A few seconds earlier I was thinking that no sane hawk would go after a full-grown raccoon.
Now I was going after a Hork-Bajir. Hork-Bajir compare to raccoons like a nuclear bomb compares to a bow and arrow.
It would have to be the eyes. The eyes were the only weak spot.
"Tseeeeer!"
I rocketed toward the Hork-Bajir. The human slipped and fell again.
Talons forward. The Hork-Bajir was totally focused on his prey. I hit him fast and hard and sailed past.
"Gurrawwwrr!" the Hork-Bajir yelled. He clutched at his eyes.
The human was up and running again.
"Gurr gafrasch! To me! Getting away! Hilch nahurrn!",the Hork-Bajir yelled, in the strange combination of human and alien speech that they use when working with humans.
He was calling for help. I used my momentum to soar up over the tops of the trees. He had plenty of help available. Another Hork-Bajir about a thousand yards off. And two of the bogus Park Rangers were nearer.
It was all coming back to me. The fake Park Rangers. The Hork-Bajir enforcers. This was the lake. A Yeerk supply ship must be on its way in.
Yeerks. Andalites.
My friends, the Animorphs.
Yes, my friends. I remembered now. But this human was not one of them. This human prey was older. A stranger.
The freed hawk was watching me. I could almost feel her drawing me toward her. It was like a magnet. She was my kind. She was like me.
But the Park Rangers were in hot pursuit of the human now. The human was nothing like me.
Poor, clumsy ground runner that he was. He was just prey.
And yet, for some reason, I couldn't let him be prey.
I couldn't. Me.
Tobias.
53 CHAPTER 17
I landed on the perch outside Rachel's window. It was night. But she wasn't asleep. She was reading a book in bed, propped up by several pillows.
I fluttered a wing against the glass.
"Rachel?"
She started. The book went flying. She jumped up and ran to the window, throwing it open.
"Tobias?"
"More or less," I said wryly.
She started to hug me, to put her arms around me. But then she realized that wasn't possible.
Birds aren't exactly made for hugging.
"Are you okay? We've all been terrified. Cassie said maybe you were killed or something.
There are all kinds of things that can happen. Jake is so depressed."
"I'm okay," I said. I flapped over to her dresser.
Now that she was sure I was safe, she started getting mad. It made me smile inwardly. That was Rachel for you.
"Tobias, what is the deal with you? Why would you just disappear and leave us all worrying for days?"
"It's hard to explain," I said. "I guess . . . the hawk sort of won out over me. Not that it's really that way. I mean, the hawk instincts . . . they're strong." I told her about my first kill.
About how much it horrified me.
I don't know how I expected her to react. She tried to look sympathetic, but I could see it bothered her.
"I lost control," I admitted. "For the last couple of days I've been living like a hawk. All the way, like a hawk. I think I was starting to forget . . . me. I was starting to lose touch with humans. Then something happened"
"What?" She went to check her door and make sure neither of her sisters was nearby. I could hear that the house was quiet. "What happened?"
I told her about going to the lake. I told her about the guy being chased by Hork-Bajir.