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mosses and molds and clumps of hideous
flowers. There were no paths.
I ended up having to step carefully, only able
to hurry when I was sure of a place to leap.
Ba-Whoooom!
An explosion rocked the room. The concussion,
trapped in that hole, knocked me off my feet
and left me temporarily deaf.
Brilliant light!
Falling rock and debris.
A hole had been blown into the top of the "bright
hole." Leeran sunlight streamed down in a
blinding shaft.
And down, down through the shaft of light, the
Hork-Bajir dropped.
Their fall was slowed by small rockets on their
feet and tails. The rockets burned red.
Two, four, a dozen Hork-Bajir warriors
falling in slow motion, unlimbering their Dracon
beams. I could see them peering about as they fell,
searching for the cylinder. And for me.
I ran. I didn't care if I broke a
leg. I ran, I leaped, I fell and lurched
back up.
It was a race between falling Hork-Bajir and
me.
Tseeewww!
ZzzzaaaaPPPP!
The Dracon beam stabbed at me, missed, and
boiled a bright blue cabbage into steam.
Just a few more feet!
Suddenly, my hands were pressed on the cold
metal. The code! What was the code?
My fingers flew.
Tssseeewww! Tseeewww!
"Het gafrash nur!" a Hork-Bajir
screamed.
Tsseeewww!
Aaaahhh!"; I felt a burn across my
back, a glancing blow from a Dracon beam.
The code! The code! I entered it. Was I
right? Had I remembered?
Then ...
System armed."; The cool, thought-speak
voice of the computer. Warning. This system is
armed.";
I collapsed, leaning back against the cylinder.
Galuit had said once they got confirmation that we
had armed the system, they'd wait half an hour
to give us time to escape.
Half an hour would be too long. The Yeerks
would be able to disarm it by then.
A huge Hork-Bajir hit the ground right in
front of me.
I punched the built-in communicator on the
cylinder. This is Aristh Aximili,"; I
said. Do it now. Do it now! Blow the Yeerks
off this planet!";
"Filshig Andalite!" the Yeerk inside the
Hork-Bajir screamed.
I was calm. Shockingly calm.
Detonation in ten seconds,"; the computer
warned.
"Disarm that weapon!" the Hork-Bajir commander
yelled, switching to Galard, the interstellar
language.
Seven ...";
I don't think so, Yeerk. This time you
lose. This time, you die.";
Five ...";
The Hork-Bajir raised his Dracon beam
in rage. "You'll die first, Andalite scum!"
Three ...";
He squeezed the trigger.
The Dracon beam fired. Point-blank
range. Five feet from my face.
One ...";
I literally saw the Dracon beam stop. The
beam stopped in midair as time froze. I heard
a "pop!"
And suddenly, I was no longer there.
I felt the warm, human skin beneath my six
legs. What?"; I yelped.
What the ...?"; Rachel yelled.
Whoa! Whoa, I am serious: Whoa!";
Marco cried. This is way too strange.";
I was back. On Earth. In mosquito
morph.
We were all back. All back! And all at
the same exact moment.
We were in the hospital room, surrounded
by human-Controllers who were busy firing human
guns out the window at the bushes below. Still trying
to kill the Andalite.
Me.
But that was not the biggest problem I had. Because right
then, as I sat on vibrating human flesh,
surrounded by giant hairs, a huge,
sky-filling object came hurtling down toward
me.
ationo way!"; Rachel yelled. Ax,
move out!";
I fired my wings.
The object, five fingers each as big around as
a large tree, came slapping down at me.
"Ow!" said Hewlett Aldershot the Third,
as he slapped the spot where I'd been busily
biting him.
"Ow!" he said again.
"The human! He's awake!" one of the
human-Controllers said.
"He's not supposed to wake up yet!"
another moaned. "He's in a coma!"
"What do we do?"
"The Visser will kill us!"
"The police are coming. We can't be taken!"
"Run! Run!"
"What do we do with this Aldershot human?"
"We have no orders."
"Run!" someone yelled again. And this time, the
rest agreed.
There came a loud vibrating thunder as the
human-Controllers all raced from the room in a
panic.
Moments later, a frightened nurse came in.
"Mr. Aldershot! You're ... you're
conscious."
"Of course I'm conscious," he said.
"Nurse, are you aware that this room is full of
mosquitoes?"
"So wait a minute here," Rachel said.
"We get zapped back here through Zero-space,
one by one, at different times. But when we get
back here, we all arrive at the same moment?
And no time has passed?"
I nodded my human head. We were at the
mall. At the place where the excellent food
places are. I was in human morph. Behaving
perfectly like a human. "Exactly, Rachel.
Eggs-Act'-lee. Zactly. We arrived
back at the precise moment when we were snatched
away. We were all yanked away at the same
moment, so naturally we all arrived back at the
same moment. Yanked. Yanked is a strange
word. Yank. Yank-kut."
"Yeah," Marco said. "That's what's
strange: the word "yanked." Us turning
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