"She cares for you," the Yeerk said. "She is their weak link. Rachel will be strong. So will the hawk and the Andalite. But Marco ... he thinks too much. And he has an interesting history. He is open to persuasion."

I felt sick. The Yeerk was opening my mind at will. Reading whatever he wanted. I had no secrets from him. None. He already knew everything I knew about my friends. If he got away . . .

My feet began walking. Tobias led the way, appearing and disappearing in the trees above.

64 Rachel walked ahead of me. Behind me, Marco and Ax. Cassie stayed at my side.

"From all we know, Jake, you can still hear me and understand me," Cassie said. "I know you can't answer. Or if you do answer it won't be you, anyway - "

"But it is me," said the Yeerk. "Who else would it be?"

"The Yeerk," Cassie said calmly.

"You think I'm a Controller just because I yelled at Ax? Like I've never lost my temper be fore?

Come on. It was a bad day. For all of us, but especially for me."

"Not so bad a day," Ax piped up from behind. "How many Yeerks were in that pool? How many survived those temperatures? Only you, by getting inside Prince Jake. How many of your pool-fellows died today?"

I could feel the Yeerk boiling with rage. It was shocking and bizarre to feel so much emotion. It was something he could not hide from me. I could feel his emotions, even though I could not penetrate his thoughts.

"Ax," the Yeerk said, "I'm never happy when any creature has to be destroyed. But I don't feel any pity for those Yeerks. They are out to enslave us. We did what we had to do."

It was perfect. Exactly what I would have said. Because it was exactly what I felt.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cassie looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"See? Already she has doubts," the Yeerk said to me. "She is bothered by the Andalite's bloodthirstiness. She liked what I said more."

Was he right? Would all of my friends stand firm? How could they, when every word I spoke sounded exactly like me?

We marched through the woods for what seemed like a very long time. None of us could move very fast because we were without shoes. Tobias knew these woods well and led us around brambles and rough patches, but still, my feet were tender after an hour of walking on pine needles and twigs.

But the pain was so far away. ... I was feel ing it from a distance. It was like I was shackled.

Chained to a wall. I could not move a hand, or even a finger. I did not blink my own eyes. I did not decide which direction to look, or what sounds to focus on.

The Yeerk's control was absolute.

"Almost there," Tobias said. "I'm going higher to make sure the area is completely clear." 65 "All this walking. Such a waste of effort," the Yeerk commented to me. "They cannot possibly hold me against my will. Not even for three hours, let alone three days."

"You heard Tobias, right, Jake?" Cassie asked. "Almost there. It's a good thing. My feet are killing me. I need to walk barefoot more often. Like I did when I was little. Toughen up, for times like these. Getting home will be easier. I can just use my osprey morph and fly home."

"Cassie, listen," the Yeerk said. "I know you guys think you're doing the right thing. But there's no way Ax can pull off being me. My parents will figure it out. Or worse yet, Tom will figure it out. Then we'll all be dead. Don't you see what's happening here?"

"Shut up, Yeerk," Rachel snapped. "I've known Jake all my life. Marco has known him since they were kids. And Cassie has known him for years. Between the three of us, we can teach Ax to pass for Jake."

"It will never work," the Yeerk said.

Rachel stopped walking. She turned to face me, blocking the way. She was smirking, but she seemed to be looking past me, over my shoulder. "No? You don't think so, Yeerk?"

The Yeerk stopped walking. "Rachel, you don't have to try and impress me with how tough you are. I know you're too smart to really believe any of this. And you know as well as I do, this is not going to work."

"I disagree," a voice behind me said. "Humans believe what they see."

The Yeerk whipped my head around.

There, standing a few feet from me was . , . me.

Totally, absolutely, me.

66 Chapter 17

Tie was a perfect copy of me. Like looking in a mirror.

"I morphed a while back," Ax said. "I've been watching the way you walk and move. To copy you better. Ter. Bet. Ter."

The Yeerk grinned. "You may look like me, but that isn't going to be enough. I give it an hour before Tom figures it out."

Marco looked at Rachel and cocked an eyebrow. Rachel looked at Cassie, who sighed and nodded her head.

"See, that was a stupid way to play it, Yeerk," Marco said. "If you really were Jake, you might be frustrated that we wrongly suspected you. But you'd figure the smart thing would be to help Ax play the role. If you were you, so to speak, you'd have to hope Ax pulled it off."

Rachel curled her lip contemptuously. "You just blew final Jeopardy. You're still trying to make us let you go. By now Jake would have realized he had to help us succeed."

The Yeerk said nothing. I think he knew he'd made an error. But I still sensed absolute confidence from him. Like a poker player holding an extra ace.

We reached the shack. It was a depressing, half-fallen-down mess with a wood floor and log walls and a roof that only covered half the place.

There was a bird's nest of some type in the rafters. Bushes had grown in through a hole in one wall. There were beer cans and soda cans strewn around, but they all looked pretty old. Nothing recent.

Tobias had chosen well. We would probably be left alone for the three days.

Tobias, with his laser vision, had found a few feet of rope in an old campground. He flew back with it in his talons and Marco and Rachel tied my hands behind my back.

"Sorry, Jake," Marco said. "But that's the way it is. If you're still in there, you understand."

"We'll loosen the rope every couple of hours so the circulation isn't cut off," Rachel said. "I'll be here for the first shift. Cassie and Marco are going back with Ax, to get him prepared to play you." She smiled. "He already has the serious, responsible-sounding thing down. They just need to give him a sense of humor and stop him from playing with every sound he says."

It sounded fairly good to me. But I was nervous that only two of them would be around to guard me.

Of course, one of those two was Tobias. I could never run fast enough to hide from him. And Rachel could morph into a wolf and run me down.

67 But it bothered me that the Yeerk in my head had not lost his cockiness.

In fact, he was reveling in a fantasy of promotions and power. "Within a few hours I will be back with my kind. I will personally tell Visser Three all I know. It will be the end of your little band. The end! Visser Three will promote me again. It will be the fastest series of promotions ever. I'm already in the one-hundreds. I could rise to the nineties. I will be an Under-Visser. In a few of your years, who knows? I could be a Visser!"

But it was more than just talk. I could see the pictures, too. The images his mind conjured up.

They were sketchy, but I saw Visser Three nodding his head as my Yeerk, still in my body, showed him my friends. They were all bound and gagged and lying helpless on the floor of Visser Three's Blade ship.