The water was sludgy, brown, and viscous.

And roiling with slugs.

Yeerks. In their natural state.

"Well, well, well," I said.

"Yeerks," Ax said, with that combination of disgust and pure hatred Andalites always showed.

"A portable Yeerk pool. There must be a small Kandrona nearby." Yeerks must leave their host bodies every three days to return to a Yeerk pool. In the Yeerk pool they feed by soaking up various nutrients, but especially Kandrona rays, which are like the rays of their home sun. Kandronas are artificial sources of Kandrona rays.

"Can they see us? Now, I mean?"

52 "No, Prince Jake. In their natural state they are blind."

I walked slowly around the whirlpool. My foot hit something solid. The pump for the whirlpool action. It was disconnected, with a wire pulled out of the wall socket. The control panel had been ripped away, exposing bare wires.

"Ax? What do you think would happen to all those Yeerks in there if the temperature of the liquid suddenly went up to say, one hundred twenty degrees? And the liquid was all agitated?"

Ax looked puzzled. "I believe the heat and the agitation might destroy them."

"Well. That would be a pity." I made a quick decision. "Ax? Watch the door to the hallway.

Cassie? We may need you in some more dangerous morph. What have you got?"

"Wolf?"

"Perfect. But no howling."

"What are you going to do?" Cassie asked.

"We came here to stop this sick operation, right? Well, wiping out a hundred or so Yeerks might be a good way to start. I'm going to hook this thing back together, and Jacuzzi these filthy creeps to death."

There were no tools in the room. But I did find some tape and a pair of tweezers. That was all I needed. I began reconnecting wires, red to red, blue to blue, green to green. Without the switches, the settings would all automatically be at maximum. Maximum heat, maximum jets.

But all the while, in the back of my head, was this nagging feeling.

It couldn't be this easy.

I connected the last wire.

Cassie had finished the transformation into her wolf body. She stood by patiently, like a very big, very tough-looking dog.

"Okay. Time to boil some Yeerks."

I reached down and stuck the plug in the outlet.

It took a few seconds, then the boiling sound began. The familiar Jacuzzi bubbling.

The door opened. A man and a woman, both wearing white lab coats. For a split second they just froze and stared.

"Andalite!" the woman yelped.

53 Cassie was on her in a flash. She leapt, hit the woman hard, and knocked her to the floor.

Ax moved toward the man, but the man was fast. He dodged, staying out of range of Ax's tail.

I was still behind the whirlpool, out of sight. I was trying to focus on morphing into tiger form for a fight.

But then, two more men, dressed in uniform as guards, came plowing into the room. The first one leveled a gun.

"Ax!" I shouted. "A gun!"

Ax's tail flashed.

"Aaaargghh!" the Controller screamed.

The hand that had been holding the gun was no longer attached to the man's arm.

"Get backup to the pool area! Andalites!" the second guard screamed into a walkie-talkie. Then he drew his gun.

BLAM! BLAM!

They told me later there was a third shot. But I didn't hear it.

A sledgehammer blow struck the side of my head. A ricochet. For a brief second I clung to consciousness. But then, I swooned. I fell.

Facedown in the whirlpool.

Facedown in the bubbling, boiling mass of dying Yeerks.

54 Chapter 14

"Facedown, unconscious, in the superheating Yeerk pool.

I don't know for how long.

When I woke I had two terrifying, overwhelming feelings. One was suffocation. I had breathed in a lungful of the liquid from the pool.

I came to, gasping and hacking and gagging. I was alive, but I could hardly breathe. Each breath was a struggle. I coughed and I think at one point I threw up.

The second feeling was of pain in my head. Pain like nothing I had ever even imagined be fore.

It was like someone was drilling a hole in my ear, drilling straight into my brain.

I wanted to scream, but I was still choking. I was on my knees on the floor of the hospital room, wanting to cry from the pain and gasping for every half-breath of air.

All the while, a battle raged. They were trying to get in the doorway. But it was too narrow for more than one or two human-Controllers at a time to attack. Ax's tail and Cassie's long wolf teeth were enough to hold them off.

BLAM! Another gunshot!

"Stop firing, you fool!" someone shouted. "The pool is in there! Visser Three will eat your guts!"

Even in my condition I could see that Ax and Cassie couldn't last. I needed to morph, to join the battle. But I could not seem to do it. The pain ... or maybe the lack of oxygen ... I couldn't concentrate. My brain was fuzzy, drift ing ...

I heard a rumbling, pounding noise from the hallway outside. There were cries and screams of rage. Suddenly, into the room burst a huge black gorilla and a second wolf.

Marco and Rachel.

They had driven the attackers away, but only for a few seconds.

"Jake's hurt," I heard Cassie say. "He fell in the Yeerk pool."

"Marco, grab Jake," Rachel ordered. "Get something to cover his face. Ax, Cassie, keep holding the door. I'm going to change morph. We need more firepower."

I felt myself lifted up off the floor. A white cloth was wrapped around my head. One of the lab coats from an injured Controller, I guessed. I was cradled in the huge arms of a gorilla.

"Rock-a-bye baby," Marco joked. "Hang in there, man. We're getting you out of here." 55 I was still coughing and gasping, but my breathing was at least improving. Not enough to speak, but I could breathe enough to keep from passing out.

At the same time, something had happened to the pain in my head. It was diminishing. And yet, instead of feeling more clearheaded, I felt more confused.

"Get them!" a Controller was yelling outside the door. "Attack. Attack!"

"It doesn't look like I'm gonna fit through this doorway." It was Rachel. "So I guess I'll have to make the door a little bigger."

I caught just a glimpse through the fabric that hid my face. A flash of something huge and gray.

Rachel's elephant morph.

"Rachel?" a voice in my head wondered. The voice was surprised. "A human?" BOOOM! WHUMP! CRRRUUUUNNCH!

"Now the door is plenty big," Rachel said.

Wild screams! Panic! Cries of pain!

I was bounced and slammed against walls and even dropped at one point. I felt us go down a set of stairs. I felt hands grabbing at me and slipping away.

Finally, fresh air. We were running like mad for the shelter of a stand of trees that fronted the hospital.

"Cassie!" Marco said. "You have a horse morph, right? Quick. Before they figure out how to follow us."

I was tossed onto the dirt.

The gorilla peeled back the coat that was over my face. "You alive? Man! That was intense.

That is one hospital that's going to need some redecorating. We're gonna put you on Cassie. Then we'll try to cover your retreat."

"My . . . head ..." I said.

"Headache? No surprise, dude."

"Something . . . wrong ... I can't. . . think."

"Don't worry. Take a break. We have it under control. More or less."

"Unbelievable," said a voice in my head. "Can it be? Humans?" 56 What was that voice? Where was it coming from?