"So far I'm fine," she said, but her thought-speech was shaky. "Still . . . breathing . . . with my lungs."

But at that moment, two slits appeared in her neck.

Gills.

67 "Aaaah!" she cried.

"Cassie, pull out of it!" Jake cried in an urgent whisper.

"No. No. Almost done. Tobias . . . "

"I'm ready," I said grimly.

She was tiny now. Less than a foot long. All that was left of her human body were two very tiny doll hands. They made little fins.

Cassie flopped wildly. Her mouth gasped silently.

"Go!" Jake said.

I closed careful talons around Cassie's squirming fish body, aimed for the small sliver of sky that I could see through the cave's opening, and flapped my powerful wings.

I burst out of the cave into fresh air.

"Are you okay, Cassie?"

"Fish mind . . . panicky . . . water. Water now!"

"Hang in there. You've been through this before. You know how it is when you first go into a morph. You have to get control of the fish's instincts."

"Water! Water! I can't breathe!"

I was about ten feet up, racing for the water's edge. Suddenly, below me, a Hork-Bajir.

He looked up and saw me. A bird with a fish in his talons.

I doubted the Hork-Bajir would realize that red-tails don't catch fish. At least I hoped he wouldn't.

I swooped down over the water. The huge Yeerk ship was just lowering its intake pipes into the water. I dropped behind a stand of trees that hugged the shoreline.

"Get ready!" I warned Cassie. I Jet her go like one of those old World War Two planes dropping its torpedo.

She hit the water with a small splash.

"Are you all right?"

No answer.

"Cassie! I said, are you all right?"

"Y-y-yeah," she said at last. "I'm here."

68 "Are you dealing with the fish okay?"

Again, no answer. Then, "Whoa. Cool! I'm underwater!"

I relaxed. "Yes, you sure are underwater," I said with a laugh.

"I was scared," she admitted. "I . . . I know this sounds crazy. But I just keep seeing myself.

Fried. With a wedge of lemon and some tartar sauce. "

69 CHAPTER 22

Jake was next. He morphed and I flew him over the heads of two patrolling Park Rangers who did not even seem to notice me.

Then came Marco. When I exited the cave with him I practically ran into a big Hork-Bajir.

He didn't take any notice of me, either.

Cassie's plan was working. Even with all the Controllers on maximum alert, it never occurred to them that their enemy might be a bird with a fish in its talons.

Back in the cave, it was just Rachel.

"So far so good," I said.

"Yeah. I guess so."

"Are you nervous?"

"I'd have to be crazy not to be nervous. Oh well. Here goes."

She started to morph. I'd seen three others do it now, so it wasn't a surprise to me. But it was still horrifying to watch a friend, someone you cared about, twist and deform and mutate before your eyes.

I don't think any of us will ever get used to morphing. Maybe the Andalites are used to it. I don't know. But I'll bet it creeps them out, too, when they have to change.

I looked away as Rachel began to get strange and hideous.

She was almost completely a fish when it happened.

Crash! Crash! Someone was forcing their way through the bushes at the mouth of the cave.

"Heffrach neeth there." A Hork-Bajir!

"Yes, I see it," a human voice said grumpily. "You know, these human bodies aren't blind.

Just because you're in a Hork-Bajir, don't get delusions. Use those blades of yours to hack some of these thorns out of the way."

I heard a sound like fast machetes, slicing away the vines and thorns.

"Better not find anything in here," the human-Controller said. "The Visser will do to you what was done to that poor fool yesterday who let the human escape."

I looked at Rachel. It was too late for her to morph back.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Yeerks! A human-Controller and a Hork-Bajir-Controller, right outside the cave."

"Go in fergutth vir puny body. Ha ha."

70 "This was your sector to check. You didn't even notice this cave. Keep getting on my nerves and I'll tell him!"

"He gulferch you and eat your lulcath. Ha ha."

Suddenly a human head appeared, followed by shoulders. He was wearing a Park Ranger's outfit.

"We have to make a break for it!" I told Rachel. "Here they come!"

"Yeah, there's a cave in here, all right. There's some kind of a bird - "

I grabbed Rachel, now fully in fish morph. But the human-Controller blocked the narrow entrance.

Well, I thought. It worked with a helicopter . . .

With a rush of wings I flew right at his face.

"What the - " He fell back, beating at the air.

I scraped past him.

The Hork-Bajir slashed at the air with one of his wrist blades. He shaved an inch off my tail.

But I was in the air now, and moving faster. Only it was hard with Rachel, The weight of a fish is more than a red-tail can carry easily. And I had already carried three. I was tired.

Fortunately, I was also very scared. Fear can make you strong sometimes, Ssseeeewww!

A Dracon beam sizzled the air above me!

Unfortunately for the Hork-Bajir who had fired, the Dracon beam did not stop when it buzzed by me. No, the Dracon beam hit the underside of the vast truck ship. A small, neat, round hole appeared in the bottom of the ship. It was too small to amount to anything.

But suddenly the Hork-Bajir lost his interest in me.

"Fool!" the human-Controller cried. "Visser Three will have your head for dinner!"

While they were busy panicking, I dropped Rachel into the water with the others.

"Good work, Tobias," Jake said. "Be careful up there, my friend."

"You, too," I said. "Good luck, you guys."

I could just barely see them, a small school of fish in the shallows. They swam off and disappeared into deeper water.

71 As I've told you, there are limits to how far thought-speech can reach. We don't really know what those limits are. But I wanted to stay as close to them as I dared, in case they needed me. Not that there was much that I could do to help someone underwater.

I didn't want to stay right over them. I figured that would look suspicious to anyone on shore.

It was hard to figure out what to do. The monstrous bulk of the truck ship was overhead, leaving only a few feet open above the surface of the water.

I decided I had to chance it. I flew under the ship, skimming the dappled water below and practically scraping the metal belly of the ship above me.

It was a very difficult flight. I had to stay almost totally level. I couldn't rise or fall by more than a couple of feet.

"You guys still okay?"

"Tobias? I can't believe you can still thought-speak with that whole ship between us," Rachel said.

I guess I could have told her the truth. That I was within a few feet of them. But then Jake would have just gotten all mad and told me not to take stupid risks.

I figured that between the time it had taken through the entire morphing process, and carrying them one at a time to the water, plus now the time spent swimming out to the big intake pipe, Cassie had been in morph for just over half an hour. Jake had ten minutes more, then Marco and Rachel.

"What are you guys doing now?" I asked.

"We're looking at the bottom of this intake pipe. There's tremendous suction," Rachel reported.