The Message (10 page)
Authors: K.A. Applegate
Shark!
I’d been distracted by the explosions.
Ax had morphed a shark.
I soared up through the water, angling toward the distant surface. But as I rose I looked behind me. There were two jagged holes in the dome. Water was gushing in like Niagara Falls. As I watched, a third dark cylinder was falling slowly from the surface. Even I had seen enough submarine movies to know it was a depth charge.
We were near the surface now, just a dozen feet from the bright barrier of sea and sky.
Just then a larger, darker shadow swept over us. A
shadow that was dark inside of dark. A shadow that touched your soul. It skimmed just above the surface of the water.
It was shaped like a long battle-ax. Twin semicircular blades at the back, a long, diamond-headed point at the front.
The Blade ship of Visser Three.
Something was falling from it as it passed over us. There were a dozen splashes. I rolled over to get a better look.
What I saw made my flesh crawl.
Taxxons. In the water. Coming toward us.
Marco yelled.
But the answer was obvious. The Taxxons, ten-foot-long centipedes bristling with dozens of pairs of sharp needle legs, were racing after us. And they were very fast in the water.
Very
fast.
From this angle we couldn’t see the several red-jelly eyes. But we could see the circular mouth at the top of each vile body.
I had seen Taxxons straining to catch bits of Prince Elfangor as Visser Three devoured him.
I had seen Taxxons, on orders from Visser Three, devour one of their own.
I grinned inwardly.
21
T
here were a dozen Taxxons in the water. Five of us. Swimming in a straight line, the Taxxons were faster. But, as we soon discovered, we were more maneuverable.
I focused on one of the big worms. But I had to force myself into the fight. This was not a shark, and the dolphin’s instinctive dislike of sharks was not there to prod me.
I had to find the will to fight in my own, human mind. It’s not such an easy thing. I had fought the Yeerks to preserve human freedom. Now I fought
to help the entire world. Still, fighting doesn’t come naturally to me.
And yet, I knew what I had to do. The Yeerks would show no mercy. If the Taxxons won, we would be killed. Or worse.
I powered toward one of the Taxxons as he powered toward me. We were like two trains running on the same track. Head to head.
At the last possible second, with the gaping red mouth of the Taxxon just a foot away, I zoomed sideways, arched my back, and rammed the Taxxon’s side.
I expected it to be like the shark—hard, tough, unyielding. It was not. It was like hitting a soggy paper bag with a sledgehammer. The Taxxon burst like a dropped watermelon.
All around me the battle raged. Dolphin against Taxxon. And Ax’s shark against Taxxon.
Scientists believe that sharks are one of the oldest species of animals still in existence. Nature built them as perfect predators. Perfect killing machines. Nature hasn’t had to revise or update them much. They were built right the first time.
Dolphins are very different. Scientists say that millions of years ago, dolphins were land animals. Sea mammals are not very different from humans and other mammals. They evolved their way back into the ocean. Part of that evolution included learning to cope with predators—with killer whales and sharks.
I don’t know what sea the Taxxon race evolved in. I don’t know what natural predators they faced there. But they were not ready for this ocean. They were not ready to go one-on-one with the masters of Earth’s deep seas. They were no match for dolphin or shark.
I shot to the surface and filled my lungs with warm evening air. The sun was dropping toward the horizon. Two ships were close by and steaming in our direction.
But far worse was the Blade ship, which hovered now just a hundred yards up in the air.
BAH-LUMPH!
I heard a huge concussion behind me. Like someone had dropped a big truck in the water.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
Rachel asked.
I rose to the surface to breathe and look around. The two surface ships were still closing in, but they were not very fast, and they were not gaining on us. The Blade ship had disappeared. I scanned the sky in all directions, but I couldn’t see it.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
Suddenly I remembered that I was not limited to the usual human senses. I fired off a rapid series of echolocating clicks.
The picture that came back was startling.
Jake, Marco, and Rachel all echolocated.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
I rose to breathe again and looked back. At just that moment I saw, far behind me, a huge, dark red,
almost purple hump above the water. It seemed to be covered with hundreds of small fish tails, all beating frantically.
I went under.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
It almost made me laugh, the image of an Andalite classroom where Andalite students zoned out on the lesson just like we did. But it really wasn’t a good time for laughing.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
22
T
he creature Visser Three had become did not tire.
We did.
I felt like I had been swimming forever. Half an hour into the chase, I was exhausted. We had been powering through the water at panic speed. Fighting every current. Fighting the terrible urge to rest as our tails weakened. Fighting the growing hunger.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
The mardrut never tired. It never weakened. It gained on us a foot at a time, bit by bit.
I could see it now. A huge purple and red mottled bag that undulated and oozed through the water. It
was propelled by the three huge water sacs, firing one after another. Between those loud bursts, the hundreds of tiny tails that covered its entire surface thrashed and kept up momentum.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
Then he spoke. We had all heard that silent voice in our heads before. It was like hearing the most terrible curses. It was pure malice and hatred poured directly into our brains.
Visser Three sneered.
That voice churned my insides. I felt my own hatred flaring up to match his. The images Ax had painted—an Earth brown and empty and filled with nothing but the slaves of the Yeerks… .
I had lived my entire life without feeling hatred. It is a sickening feeling. It burns and burns, and sometimes you think it’s a fire that will never go out.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.
We had all been exposed to Visser Three. Ax had not. He seemed to shudder, even in his shark body. The dead shark eyes showed no emotion, but his swimming became erratic.
But Ax’s fear was catching. He was right. We didn’t have enough time to make it to land without being trapped in our dolphin bodies. And we would never escape him, anyway. I glanced back.
He was only five body lengths away!
I demanded still more from my burning muscles, but there was nothing more to ask.
This is the end, Cassie,
I told myself.
This is the end.
I felt the terrible hatred surge in me again. But I didn’t want to end my life that way. I would not die with hate in my heart. That would be one victory I could deny Visser Three.
I let my mind drift, even as my shattered body struggled to go on. I felt my mind floating back. To the barn, and all the animals there. To my father, my mother. To Jake.
I remembered good things. Riding the high thermals with Tobias and the others with wings spread wide. Good days. Sitting at my grandmother’s feet as
she told me the story of our family, of all the generations who had lived on and worked the farm.
And then a more recent memory surfaced. The whale. I remembered his huge, gentle silence filling my mind.
I could even hear his song.
Wait! I
could
hear his song. That wasn’t memory. I was hearing his plaintive, haunting song, reverberating through the water.
He was not far away.
I opened my mind and let my human consciousness slip away. I let go. I invited the dolphin mind—the mind that loved to play and loved to fight and loved the feeling of soaring out of the water right up into the air like a bird—to surface in my head.
I fired echolocating bursts, a thousand quick clicks compressed into a few seconds. And more than that, I cried for help.
It was foolish. It was ridiculous. But I cried out in a silent plea, like a child with a nightmare calling for her mother.
The monster is after me! The destroyer! The evil one!
Help me.
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP.