"Marco's right. And someone should go first."

" For once , I volunteer," I said. I couldn't wait to get out of that ant body.

First I moved away from them. It was totally dark, so I didn't have to watch the changes in myself. But trust me, feeling them was bad enough.

Once I was human again, I began to look for a light. Then I froze.

My huge, human feet could crush my friends!

I stood perfectly still and ran my hands along the wall. Nothing. Nothing. A bulletin board. A desk! Phone. Some kind of machine, probably a fax. There! A lamp!

The sudden light was blinding. I blinked and covered my eyes with my hand. As soon as I could see, I looked around. I was in a very small room, like a windowless office. I was alone.

Then I looked down at my body. Arms. Legs. Feet. Yes! Human! Completely human.

"We see light," Jake said. "I know you can't thought-speak now, so, if it's safe, flick the light."

I could see them now. Four tiny ants, huddled against the corner of the wall. It took my breath away.

Had that been me? I had been one of them? Down there?

I flicked the light. Seconds later, they began to demorph. I turned away, and focused on rifling the desk.

"That was gross beyond belief," Cassie said. She was the first to complete her change.

"Yeah," I agreed.

46 "I don't want to do that again," she said. I could hear the shiver of fear and disgust in her voice.

I didn't answer. I was too scared to want to talk about it. If I talked about it, it would become real, you know? Better not to think. Better to shove it out of my mind.

"This is the place," Rachel said when she had grown eyes and a mouth again. "I recognize it.

Chapman's office. I was a cat when I was in here, but this is it."

"Let's get this done. In and out," Jake said nervously. "Ax? Find that transponder."

Ax, now fully Andalite again, immediately began removing a panel from the thing I thought was a fax machine.

I continued looking through Chapman's desk. Nothing much there. No papers. No files.

Ax looked at me and smiled in that way Andalites have of smiling with just their eyes. He touched a small cube I thought was a paperweight. The paperweight lit up and projected a picture into the air in front of me.

"Cool," I said. "A computer, right?"

"Yes. A computer."

I poked the air, pointing at a symbol that looked like it would be a folder. It opened. The document was written in some totally alien alphabet.

"You can use a computer?"

"Sure. Why not? This is a few hundred years more advanced than ours but - "

"Stop!" Ax said suddenly. "Go back to that last document."

"You can read this stuff?"

"Yes." He stared intently. "lt is an announcement. The Yeerks have an important visitor arriving soon. Visser One."

"Visser One? That would be like Visser Three's boss?"

"Yes. Visser One is more powerful than Visser Three. Just as Visser Three is more powerful than Visser Four. There are forty-seven Vissers in the Yeerk empire. Or so we believe."

"Great," I said. "Forty-seven. Not all like our friend Visser Three, I hope."

Ax was back at work getting the transponder out of the faxlike machine. "No," he answered.

"Only Visser Three has an Andalite body. Only he can morph. Visser One has a human body, I believe. Ah. Here, I have it."

He held up a tiny, shiny disk. No bigger than a pea.

47 "Okay, let's get out of here," Jake said. "Put that thing near the crack. We won't have to carry it as far. Everyone, morph back. Let's bail."

It was the moment I dreaded. I didn't want to return to that ant body. It made me want to cry, just thinking of it. But there was no other way. If we tried to sneak out of the basement by going up through the house, we might be caught.

"Boy, I don't want to do this," I muttered. But at the same time, I focused on that ant shape.

And as I watched, my friends began to change.

Once we had shrunk back to ant size, the transponder seemed enormous. It was far bigger than we were. Standing beside it, feeling it with my legs and antennae, it felt about as big as a two-car garage.

"Everybody says ants are incredibly strong for their size," Cassie pointed out. "Let's see if that's true."

It seemed impossible, but Cassie, Rachel and Ax managed to lift that monstrous load off the ground.

I mean, it was like seeing three people walking down the street carrying a city bus. That's how big it was. But it's true what they say about ants. For their size, they are some strong little bugs.

When we reached the vertical wall, the three of them had to push it ahead and roll it up the wall, like some gigantic steel donut.

We reached the crack. They shoved the transponder in. Jake and I were in the lead.

It took all five of us to drag that thing over the crags of the concrete canyon. But we made it through and back to the dirt tunnel. The transponder was so big it blocked the tunnel. It was like a spitwad in a straw. But with Ax, Rachel and Cassie behind pushing, and Jake and I clearing boulders - grains of sand - out of the way, we made progress.

It happened suddenly.

There was no warning.

One second the tunnel ahead of me was empty. The next second it was full.

Full of a charging, racing army of ants.

Enemies, my ant brain said.

Now the killing would begin.

48 Chapter 11

"They're behind us!" It was Rachel, yelling.

"Breaking through the side of the tunnel!" Cassie screamed.

"They're everywhere!"

"Help! Help!"

"Arrrrgggghhhh!"

The speed of the attack was incredible. The force of the attack was impossible to explain.

There were hundreds of them. Ahead. Behind. Flooding up from side tunnels. Bursting from the walls.

"My leg! They bit off my leg!"

"Oh, oh, oh! My neck. Oh, help me!"

There were three of them on me. They were pulling me, trying to force me down so they could tear me apart.

Tear me apart!

A fourth scampered over my head, brushing my antennae. He locked his mandibles on my narrow waist. He was trying to bite me in half.

There was no defense. We could not win. We would all be dead in a few seconds.

They were machines. Absolutely without fear. Unstoppable.

"Morph!" I yelled. "lt's the only way! Morph!"

One of my legs came loose, torn away. Ripped out by the roots.

"Aaarrrgghhh!"

"No! No! Help me!"

I could feel my waist being sawed through by grinding sharp mandibles.

A searing liquid was fired at me. Poison. They were stinging me. Stinging me again and again, and ripping me apart.

Human. I wanted to be human again. Please, just let me live long enough to become human again!

"Morph!" Jake's voice. Then, "Aaaaahhhhh! No! NO!" My waist would snap. The mandibles would not release me.

49 Then, suddenly, the pressure around my waist was gone. Instead, I felt the sandy soil pressing against me.

I was growing!

I couldn't breathe. Sand blocked the air. Pressure. Then, the ground around me opened up. I swear it was like climbing up out of a grave. The air! Fresh, clean night air!

I exploded up out of the sand.

Jake was on top of me, pushing against me as he grew. And the others, who had been only inches away in the tunnel, also pressed together in a rapidly growing heap of misshapen bodies. I tried to squirm away, but it was awkward. I was only half human.