I gasped.

Below us, blue and white and so beautiful it brought tears to your eyes, was Earth.

Sun sparkled off the ocean. Clouds swirled over the Gulf of Mexico, a big spiral, maybe a hurricane.

"Look," Cassie said simply.

We looked. Through the eyes of the animals of Earth, but with the minds of human beings, we looked down at our planet.

Our planet.

For now, at least. For a little while longer.

Then something different came into view, as the Blade ship rotated away from Earth.

"This is why the Yeerks opened a window," Ax said. "This is what they wanted us to see. So that we would despair."

The mother ship.

It was a gigantic, three-legged insect. The center was a single, bloated sphere. The sphere was flatter on the bottom, and from the bottom hung a weird, mismatched series of tendrils.

Like the tendrils of a jellyfish. Each one must have been a quarter-mile long.

67 Around the sphere were three legs, bent up, then back down, exactly like a spider's legs.

"The legs are the engines," Ax explained. "The tendrils hanging down below the belly are weapons and sensors and energy collectors. That is also where the shipboard Kandrona is.

The Yeerks must bathe in the Yeerk pool every three days and absorb Kandrona rays. There must be one on the planet below, too."

"Yeah. We know," I said. "Your brother told us. For all the good it did us." It just hung in orbit, like a predator gazing down hungrily at blue Earth below.

"I can't believe people on Earth don't see this on radar," Rachel said. "I mean, it's huge. It's a city!"

"It is shielded," Ax said simply. "It cannot be seen by radar. And it would normally be invisible to us. Visser Three is showing it to us. To terrify us."

"He's doing a good job," I said.

"I've never been in space before," Cassie said. "I always wished I could. I always wanted to see Earth, all in one piece like that."

"It is a lovely planet," Ax said gently. "Not so different from mine. Except that we have less ocean and more grassland. I ... I am sorry I brought you all to this. This is my fault." I wanted to yell, "Yes! Yes, it is your fault!"

But Cassie said what we all knew in our hearts. "Ax, you're only here because your people wanted to protect us. Your brother and a lot of Andalites died trying to save us. Nothing is your fault."

It was true. But sometimes, when everything hits the fan, you don't want the truth. You just want someone to blame. "One too many missions" I muttered. "This was going to be my last one. Now . . . well, it will still be my last one."

I could see an opening in the side of the Yeerk mother ship - a docking port. As I watched, a pair of quick Bug fighters flew in, dwarfed by the size of the opening.

A minute later, we entered the docking port and were suddenly bathed in deep red light.

Through the window, we could see Yeerk crewmen - Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and two or three other alien species, in simple red or dark brown uni forms. And there were humans, too. My first reaction was hope. Humans!

But then I realized the truth. No. Human-Controllers. Yeerks. No different than the Hork-Bajir.

There was a slight shudder as the Blade ship came to a halt.

"Ax?" Jake asked. "What's our morph time?"

68 "We have been in morph for forty percent of allowable time." I did the math. "So we've used up forty-eight minutes. Leaving what, seventy-two minutes?"

"Yeah," Tobias confirmed. "Not a lot of time for you guys. Maybe Rachel is right. Maybe we should just go out in a blaze of glory. Attack as soon as they open the door. At least we can let them know we were here."

I saw Jake extend his claws, as if he were thinking about using them. He glanced at where the door had once been, like he was measuring the distance. I knew that he was listening to the tiger in his head.

Then he seemed to relax. "No," he said. "We have to have hope." Cassie sidled up next to him and nuzzled him with her wolf's muzzle.

I guess it should have been funny. The wolf and the tiger, sharing a tender moment. But all it did was make me a little jealous. They had each other.

"We gave them a pretty good fight, didn't we?" I said. "Our little circus? We did some damage to them."

"Yes, we did," Rachel agreed.

"Do . . ." Ax hesitated. Then, "Do humans fear death?"

"Yes. We're not crazy about death," I answered. "How about Andalites?"

"We're also not crazy about it"

Through the window we could see a lot of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and humans running around, racing to get somewhere. They were lining up. And now, I noticed, there were distinct kinds of uniforms, one red-and-black, the other gold-and-black. The brown uniforms were all around the edges, like they were less important.

Suddenly, without warning, the window stretched open into a large, arched doorway. Fetid air rushed in, smelling of oil and chemicals and something else.

A ramp rose up from the steel floor outside to meet us. We were standing like a display at the top of the ramp. All around, filling this side of the docking bay, were uniformed Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and humans. Most were in red-and- black. Perhaps two hundred creatures, standing in stiff rows, arranged by species.

About a quarter of the total were in gold-and- black. There were more humans in this group, but also some unusually massive Hork-Bajir.

"Jake? I have a feeling. I don't think the reds like the golds."

"I think they are troops of two different Vissers," Ax said. "I...I think I overheard my brother talk about that. Each Visser has his own private army in their own uniforms." 69 "Swell. I wonder which group gets to have us?" I said.

Far at the back of the rows of alien troops, there was a movement. A party of creatures walk ing to the front.

Visser Three was at the center, followed by two big Hork-Bajir in red.

And just to his left was a human. A human woman with dark hair and very dark eyes.

That was when I stopped breathing. Because I knew. Even before I could see her face clearly.

I knew.

They marched up to the bottom of the ramp. A dozen soldiers leveled Dracon beams at us, just in case we wanted any trouble.

Then, in thought-speak that all could hear, Visser Three turned to the woman beside him.

"You see, Visser One. I have taken the Andalite bandits. The crisis is over. Your trip here is wasted, and you can return to the home world."

Visser One nodded. She looked up at us with those dark brown, human eyes.

Eyes I knew. Eyes I remembered.

The same eyes that watched me sleep every night from the framed picture beside my bed.

My mother.

Visser One.

70 Chapter 17

I sat down. Very suddenly. I'm sure it looked funny. A big, hairy gorilla simply falling down.

I would have laughed if I'd seen it.

My mother. Not dead.

Alive!

I wanted to yell. "Mom! Mom! It's me, Marco!"

But Jake was in my head, a loud, urgent whisper. "Marco? Don't say anything. Don't do any thing. Do you hear me?"

So I wasn't just imagining it. Jake had recognized her, too.

"Marco? Listen to me, man. You have to hold it together." My mother. . . alive.

My mom.

"Come on, Marco, stand up. Don't make them suspicious." He was speaking just to me.

I could hear Jake. I could. But it seemed to come from far off. He didn't understand. It was my mom. My mom!