Different ways of looking at your world.
"You are fools," the Yeerk said, having read my thoughts. "It is madness to fight when you cannot win."
"Yes, it is foolish. It is crazy," I agreed. "And it's why we will win." The Yeerk demorphed and returned to human form. My human form.
Marco walked away into the woods. Rachel rumbled off. And a few minutes later, an owl appeared to lead the way back to the shack.
79 Chapter 20
The next morning, when it seemed like no one was watching, the Yeerk tried again. He morphed into an ant. He got three feet before running into a group of ants from a different colony. About forty of them attacked. They were ripping the ant body apart when the Yeerk demorphed and returned to human form.
"This is a savage planet," he said. "We will tame this world, when we take it over." But I don't think even he believed it anymore.
It was around nine in the morning on Saturday that the Yeerk first took over my body and brain.
By Monday evening, when the sun went down, he was growing distracted, unable to concentrate clearly.
By the time the moon rose in a newly clear, starry sky, he was weak with hunger. His slug body cried out for Kandrona rays the way a human would cry for food or water.
I could feel his arrogance evaporate. I could feel his despair.
He still had fantasies of being rescued. But he couldn't make those fantasies end very well. Even if he was rescued, he would no longer be the big hero who had destroyed the Animorphs.
He would try to think of clever ways to outwit my friends, but he could never be sure who was in the woods around us. Or what form they might have taken.
He tried to take on a bird shape again, reforming the peregrine falcon. The DNA had not been affected by the injuries Cassie had caused to the earlier morph, of course. The falcon was fine.
But it was daylight this time, and Tobias landed while the falcon was still half-morphed. He grabbed the falcon head in his talon and simply explained that if the Yeerk did not demorph, he would be killed.
For the first time, the Yeerk broke his silence with the others and spoke as a Yeerk.
"If you kill me, you'll kill your friend, as well," he warned.
"Yes," Tobias said. "I know."
"You won't do it"
"Right from the start we have all said the same thing - better to die than be a Controller." Tobias said. "But in any case, I don't need to kill you. I can simply put your eyes out. A blind falcon doesn't fly far."
The Yeerk surrendered and demorphed.
We waited, as the minutes and hours of the night ticked away. He still hoped for a miracle to save him. But his hunger was a terrible thing, growing with every second.
80 "You think you'll win," he sneered at me. "You won't win. Your people are blind to what is happening. And the Andalites will not return in time."
"Maybe. But you won't be there to see it," I said. "It must be four in the morning. Five hours left. Ticktock."
"You're a cruel little human, aren't you?"
"I don't think so, no."
"You know I am dying and you laugh at me."
"What do you expect? Pity?"
He laughed. "No. We don't offer pity. And we don't expect pity. We are the masters of the galaxy. Conquerors of the Hork-Bajir and - "
"Yeah, yeah, I know. The mighty Yeerk empire."
After that he said nothing to me for a while. It was impossible to sleep. He sat with my eyes open. He was too hungry to rest. The hunger infiltrated his mind. It twisted his thoughts.
"The Yeerk home world is a simpler place than this planet. Simple and elegant. No more than a hundred animal species. What do you have on Earth? A million species? More? What does a planet need with a million species?"
I didn't answer. His time was running out. Let him talk.
"We Yeerks evolved as parasites, not predators. Unlike you humans, we did not kill to eat. We were peaceful. We took many different species as our hosts. And as they evolved, so did we.
Over time, the Gedds evolved. They were a sort of ... like a monkey, I suppose. We were in the Gedds till the Andalites first came. Some of our people still have nothing better than Gedds for hosts."
"What about the Andalites?" I asked. "What happened when they came to your world?"
"Of course. The Andalite has not told you their story, has he? What a pity. It's such a fine story.
Ask your pet Andalite Ax sometime. Ask him about the story of the Andalites and the Yeerks."
"Maybe I will," I said. I hoped the Yeerk would keep talking, but he fell silent.
The hours passed. An owl left and was replaced by another. The moon went down. Dawn was coming. I could feel it.
"Yes," the Yeerk said, having read my thoughts. "Dawn. Just a few hours left. Ahhhh!" He cried out in silent pain. "The fugue. It begins."
"The fugue?"
81 "The final hours. You will not enjoy it, although you may learn a great deal, human. You may learn more than you want to - aaaahhh!"
I was watching his pain from far away. I was an observer. Close enough to know what he was feeling, but feeling none of it myself.
At first it was wave after wave of pain. Starvation and death by thirst. All rolled into one agony.
The sun came up. Cassie stepped into the shack from the woods outside. She looked at me and nodded. "It's happening, isn't it?"
I wanted to answer, but even now, my voice was not my own.
Cassie came and sat down beside me. Beside us.
"Ax says this part is pretty rough. Just remember, when it's all over, I'll be here."
She slipped her hand into my hand. I could feel it. So could the Yeerk. But he did not reject this small bit of comfort, even though it was intended for me and not him.
His mind was deteriorating. His thoughts were becoming more visible to me. Like a movie that kept drifting in and out of focus.
I saw images from a strange place, as seen through strange eyes. Liquid all around. Shapes, like squids, shooting through the liquid. Yeerks. Swimming in the Yeerk pool. Soaking up Kandrona rays.
And there were images of the first host. A Gedd. So, I thought - that's what a Gedd looks like. I had seen a few aboard the Yeerk mother ship but had not known what they were. They were humanoid, short and stooped, with webbed feet and three clumsy fingers.
I saw the world as the Yeerk had seen it, through Gedd eyes. The vision was dim. The hearing was better. The Yeerk had been excited at getting his first host. He had subdued the Gedd mind with ruthless ease, crushing it with his superior intelligence and will.
The memory made me sick. The Gedd's bewilderment. His fear. And the Yeerk's fierce arrogance.
I turned my attention away from the memory and back to the world around me. To my surprise, I noticed that my arms were shaking. My legs were shaking.
Cassie had put her arm around my shoulders.
"Jake, if you can hear me, it's almost eight. One hour to go. Jake ... the Yeerk in your head is dying."
"Yes," I wanted to say. "He is."
82 Chapter 21
The fugue.
The final hours of the Yeerk's life. I was watching him die.
A lot has happened to me since I first saw the Andalite prince land in that construction site. More strange things than happen to most people in their entire lives. But the strangest was this. And the saddest.