No. Not without telling them that I had called my home world. Not without agreeing to tell them everything.

It was time for the last words of the ritual.

"My life ... is given for the people, for my prince, and for my honor." I drew up my tail blade and pressed it against my throat in the symbol of self-sacrifice. I was breathing hard, as if I'd just been running. My hearts were beating fast.

"That's different," Tobias's voice said. "That's not the ritual you were doing the other day.

You didn't step into the water this time."

"Yes. Different," I muttered. I was angry that Tobias was there.

"You're going to do this, aren't you?"

I didn't answer. The truth was, I couldn't stand to talk about it. I was afraid. Sickly afraid. If I could achieve surprise, maybe I could kill the Visser. But he had the body of an Andalite 71 adult. A full-grown male. The Visser was also more experienced than I was. And he would have guards. There would be Hork-Bajir nearby.

"Kind of cold-blooded, isn't it?" Tobias asked. "I mean, it's one thing in a battle. But just setting out to assassinate someone - "

"Assassinate?!" I yelled. "He killed my brother! He has humans infested by the handful. He will destroy you all if he can. He will enslave your entire race."

"I wasn't criticizing. I'm a predator myself. But you could use some help. Tell me where it's happening, Ax. Tell me where you're going to find him. The others will help. You know they will."

"I can't. I can't ask for help. Jake is my prince now ... or was ... he might forbid me."

"Wait a minute. You mean Jake could just tell you no, and you wouldn't do it? What if he ordered you to answer all our questions? Then what?"

"Everyone must have someone over him. That is Andalite custom. Each warrior has a prince.

Each prince a war-prince. Each war-prince has a great leader. And each great leader must be elected by the people as a whole. And everyone, no matter how great or small, obeys the law.

He could not order me to break our laws."

"And Jake is your prince. I guess he's mine, too, in a way. You know, he doesn't think of him self that way."

"No he doesn't. I realize this."

"Don't you have a duty to tell your prince what you're doing?"

"Yes. So I guess I'm not very good at being a true warrior," I said bitterly. "I'm not much good at anything."

"I don't think that's true," Tobias said.

"Tobias? I have to do this. You promised to keep my secret. Will you break your promise?" Tobias said nothing for a while. "I won't tell anyone," he said at last.

"And you won't follow me?"

"I won't follow you," Tobias said.

"After ... I mean, if I don't return. Just in case. Tell the others that. . . that I'm sorry I could never tell them everything. There is a reason."

"Yeah, no doubt," Tobias said bitterly. "Well, good luck, Ax-man." I ran then. I ran and ran and ran.

72 It was miles to the secret place-where I would find Visser Three. I wanted to run the whole way, to run away from my own fear by heading straight toward it.

It's what Elfangor would have done. Elfangor, the great hero.

Elfangor would live on in everyone's memory as the perfect warrior. The shining prince. If I was lucky, someday people would say, "Ah, yes, Aximili broke the law, but he finished off the Abomination."

I would get points for that. People would say I had done well in the end. Others would say, "What other choice did he have? He was dishonored. It wasn't courage that sent him against Visser Three, it was merely despair."

And still others would say, "He was just a young fool trying to live up to his great brother's legacy, poor thing ."

I ran and ran till my chest ached from breathing the heavy air of Earth. I ran through dried leaves and rustling pine needles. I jumped fallen, rotting logs, and skirted patches of brambles. I ran past trees that did not speak, like the trees of my own world.

Each time I pictured being face-to-face with Visser Three, I went even faster, trying to outrun the fear.

I was far from any human homes now. Far from human roads. Deep within the forest. Old forest full of shadows and gloom.

But at last I saw the sun shining on green grass, just ahead. A meadow. Right where Eslin's note had said it would be.

I stopped running and gasped for breath. I leaned against a tree and tried to recover my wind.

My legs were shaking from a mixture of exhaustion and fear.

The meadow was beautiful. Green grass and tiny flowers in yellow and purple. I would have liked to feed there myself.

I crept toward the meadow's edge, always keeping within the shadow of the trees. I saw nothing unusual. No Bug fighters. No Hork-Bajir. No Visser Three.

Just the wildlife of Earth: two deer grazing. Squirrels racing up and down the trunks of trees.

A skunk waddling boldly past.

It would be an hour before the time the Yeerk Eslin had given me. I had an hour to plan and prepare, now that I saw the ground we were on.

I looked at the meadow. A stream, perhaps three feet across, cut the meadow in half. The grass grew tall by the stream bed.

I tried to guess where the Visser would run. Would he go to the left or the right? I would only get one chance, so I had to guess right.

I imagined where I would go, if it were me. Visser Three was in an Andalite body. Maybe he would move like an Andalite.

73 I stepped out into the blazing sunlight and walked to a place I thought would do. It was beside the small stream. A place where the grass was a bit shorter, and where it would be easy for Visser Three to step into the stream. , Then, I saw them: the hoofprints. Andalite hoof prints. - Visser Three. Yes, he had been there, perhaps a few days earlier. Eslin was right. This was the place.

I had to wait, concealed. Ready to attack at the right time. I could never hide in my Andalite body. But there were other options.

The rattlesnake. That would be the morph to use. What better way to strike suddenly than with the body of a snake?

I focused my mind on the snake. I concentrated on the change. I felt it begin almost immediately.

It was unlike any morph I had done before. Usually my legs would become some other type of leg. My arms would become some other type of arm, even if they were only fins.

But this time there were no arms, no legs. Nothing of my own body would find an echo in this new shape, except for my eyes and tail.

My legs simply melted away. Withered. Disappeared. I fell to the ground, a legless stump.

My arms shriveled and evaporated.

I heard the sounds of grinding inside my body, as all my bones melted together into my spine.

I was shrinking, but since I was already lying on the grass, it didn't seem as extreme as it sometimes did. The stalks of grass grew higher around my head, and the purple flowers grew larger, but there wasn't the usual feeling of falling as I shrank.

What I did feel was a terrible sense of utter weakness. I had no arms! I had no legs!

But my tail ... ah, that I kept, although in a very different form. The blade of my tail suddenly broke up into a sort of chain. There were dozens of raspy blisters, all connected. The rattler's tail.

My fur disappeared very swiftly, and over my bare skin scales grew. Like tiny, interlocked armor- plates that formed a pattern in brown and black and tan.

I grew a mouth. A huge mouth for the size of my body. I was a tube, and the open end was my mouth. It was a shocking body. A bizarre body. Stranger even than morphing an ant or a fish. I was a creature with no separate parts.