"A quick jog back to what passes for civilization on this planet, demorph to human, and your friends will be powerless to stop me," the Yeerk said.

I wondered who he was trying to convince. Me, or himself?

"You're an arrogant bunch, aren't you? You Yeerks, I mean."

"Arrogant? Why wouldn't we be? We are the most powerful race in the galaxy. Overlords of the Taxxons. Conquerors of the Hork-Bajir and the Ssstram and the Mak. Soon to be conquerors of the humans."

"Don't count the humans just yet," I said. "And there are still the Andalites."

"We'll save the Andalites for last," he hissed.

He stopped moving and pricked up his wolf's ears. There came a distinct howling sound. Loud and not very far away, it rose and warbled and rose again before dying away.

A second wolf voice howled.

"Another wolf. Two," the Yeerk said. I felt him contact the wolf's own submerged instinctive mind. What was the meaning of the howling?

A notice. A warning to any other wolves that we are here. Don't come around, unless you want to risk a fight.

Suddenly I realized what it meant. I laughed.

"This is an area we were in before," I said. "As wolves. We discovered - "

"Silence! I know what you found. When will you figure out that I can read your memory as well as you can?"

"We found another pack of wolves. They think this is their territory," I went on, enjoying the fact that I was bothering him. "Those howls you hear? Those are my friends. They're calling to the other wolf pack. Better run faster, Yeerk. That big male who runs the other pack is tough." The Yeerk began running all out, pushing the wolf body for all the speed and endurance it had.

The dark tree trunks were a blur as we ran through the night, followed by the howls of wolves who were not wolves.

77 Then, a smell on the wind. The smell of an other wolf. A male wolf.

"I believe that's my old friend now," I said, laughing.

The Yeerk stopped running.

Ahead, through the trees, a pair of glittering yellow eyes glared at us. Other eyes appeared. Five wolves - five real wolves - waited for us to try to move forward.

"Go ahead?" I taunted the Yeerk. "Go kick his butt. Of course, that's a realwolf there. An alpha male. Leader of his pack, which means he's probably been in a dozen fights and won them all.

Go on, Yeerk. Tell him how the Yeerks are masters of the galaxy. I'm sure he'll be very impressed."

I could sense the Yeerk's hesitation. His uncertainty.

"So many species on this planet," he said to himself. "So many balances and connections.

Everything preying on everything else. Every power is checked by some other power. Every ad vantage is canceled by some disadvantage."

"Yeah. Earth. It's a tough neighborhood."

"When we take this planet, we will eliminate these species. We will simplify. Things should be simpler. Yes, much simpler."

"I have a news flash for you, Yeerk. I don't think you're going to take this planet. I think this planet is going to take you."

Just then, a human voice. "So. You about done playing games? Ready to come back to the shack?"

It was Marco. He was shoeless and wearing his morphing outfit. He had been one of the wolves who'd led us straight into the enemy pack.

Marco shivered. "Look, Mr. Yeerk, it's cold and I'm freezing. I always knew this situation with the morphing outfits was going to be trouble some day. So come on. Let's go back to the shack."

For a moment the Yeerk was so enraged he was ready to leap at Marco and tear out his throat.

But then, lumbering up behind Marco came Rachel. The very large version of Rachel with the trunk, the big leathery ears, and the two huge tusks.

Marco seemed to guess what had gone through the Yeerk's mind. "Go ahead. Try some thing. A wolf pack ahead. A very large, surprisingly fast African elephant behind you. And more surprises in the woods all around you. Oh, and one more thing . . . Cassie is nestled down in your fur. Sucking your blood, I imagine. She did the flea thing."

78 I realized then that there is a very basic difference between Yeerks and humans.

A human will fight even when he knows he can't win. Maybe our species is just a little crazy.

But human history is full of cases where a handful of guys would fight an entire army. They'd get stomped, but they'd fight anyway.

That's not the way it is for Yeerks. They are ruthless. They will do anything, absolutely anything to win. But when the situation is impossible, totally impossible, they stop fighting. They figure that other Yeerks will carry on the fight for them.

Different ways of looking at your world.

"You are fools," the Yeerk said, having read my thoughts. "It is madness to fight when you cannot win."

"Yes, it is foolish. It is crazy," I agreed. "And it's why we will win." The Yeerk demorphed and returned to human form. My human form.

Marco walked away into the woods. Rachel rumbled off. And a few minutes later, an owl appeared to lead the way back to the shack.

79 Chapter 20

The next morning, when it seemed like no one was watching, the Yeerk tried again. He morphed into an ant. He got three feet before running into a group of ants from a different colony. About forty of them attacked. They were ripping the ant body apart when the Yeerk demorphed and returned to human form.

"This is a savage planet," he said. "We will tame this world, when we take it over." But I don't think even he believed it anymore.

It was around nine in the morning on Saturday that the Yeerk first took over my body and brain.

By Monday evening, when the sun went down, he was growing distracted, unable to concentrate clearly.

By the time the moon rose in a newly clear, starry sky, he was weak with hunger. His slug body cried out for Kandrona rays the way a human would cry for food or water.

I could feel his arrogance evaporate. I could feel his despair.

He still had fantasies of being rescued. But he couldn't make those fantasies end very well. Even if he was rescued, he would no longer be the big hero who had destroyed the Animorphs.

He would try to think of clever ways to outwit my friends, but he could never be sure who was in the woods around us. Or what form they might have taken.

He tried to take on a bird shape again, reforming the peregrine falcon. The DNA had not been affected by the injuries Cassie had caused to the earlier morph, of course. The falcon was fine.

But it was daylight this time, and Tobias landed while the falcon was still half-morphed. He grabbed the falcon head in his talon and simply explained that if the Yeerk did not demorph, he would be killed.

For the first time, the Yeerk broke his silence with the others and spoke as a Yeerk.

"If you kill me, you'll kill your friend, as well," he warned.

"Yes," Tobias said. "I know."

"You won't do it"

"Right from the start we have all said the same thing - better to die than be a Controller." Tobias said. "But in any case, I don't need to kill you. I can simply put your eyes out. A blind falcon doesn't fly far."

The Yeerk surrendered and demorphed.

We waited, as the minutes and hours of the night ticked away. He still hoped for a miracle to save him. But his hunger was a terrible thing, growing with every second.

80 "You think you'll win," he sneered at me. "You won't win. Your people are blind to what is happening. And the Andalites will not return in time."