But now I felt like I knew. It couldn't have been, see, because she did look different. I could see the evil inside her. I would have seen it back then. Right?

Part of my brain said, Don't be a fool, Marco. She's among her fellow Yeerks now. Of course she's no longer putting on an act. She doesn't have to hide what she is anymore.

My mother looked at me with the eyes of a Yeerk visser. "I was expecting four new technicians. Where are the other three?"

I just stared.

"Where are the other three who were supposed to come with you from the Pool ship?"

I jerked my head to break the spell. "The other three? The other three technicians? Oh. Dm ... they, uh, they had a problem. I think Visser Three killed them for doing something wrong."

It was possibly the stupidest lie I have ever told. And yet it worked.

My mother raised one eyebrow contemptuously. "If that clown Visser Three thinks he can damage me in the eyes of the Council of Thirteen by sabotaging this project, he's a bigger fool than I thought."

I gulped. From outside there came a huge roar and a beastly bellow. Jake and Rachel and Cassie. Still creating a distraction. I could only imagine how desperate their situation was.

"We're having a bit of a problem with the An-dalite bandits Visser Three has still failed to exterminate," Visser One said calmly.

All I could do was nod.

"I see," she said. "Obviously your host mind is giving you some trouble.

I'm sure you are aware that your host body is the biological son of my own host body."

Not a shred of emotion. Not a shred of guilt. It was sitting there, using my mother's body, knowing . . . knowing, like no one else could possibly know, the agony my mother must be feeling at seeing me.

I nodded. "Yes, Visser."

"You must learn to control your host more completely. My own host is in here creating an awful racket," she said, tapping her head. "But I do not let her weeping and wailing disturb me."

"No, Visser," I said in a whisper. "I will try harder to control my host."

I wanted to destroy that Yeerk. I wanted to reach inside that familiar head and rip that filthy Yeerk out of there and stomp it into the floor.

I was surprised Visser One couldn't see my hate. I felt it vibrating the very air around me.

But I couldn't do anything. All I could do was stand there. Stand there with my arms at my sides and listen to the foul Yeerk visser, highest of all the vissers, sneer at the fact that my

mother's mind and heart were crying from seeing her son made a slave of the Yeerks.

WHAM!

It was the sound of something large being slammed against the outside wall of the building. I pictured a Hork-Bajir thrown by a rampaging elephant.

Visser One barely blinked. "Well. I guess I'd better see to this little problem outside," she said wearily. "I have to wrap up this shark project and have a thousand shark-Controllers ready for use on Leeran within two months. I don't need to be pestered by Visser Three's leftover Andalite problems. That incompetent fool will be arriving soon.

I only wish these tiresome Andalite bandits would remove that particular annoyance from my life."

She stood up. She straightened her hair exactly the way my mom always did. I looked into her eyes, wishing I could see some sign there of my mother. Wishing I could tell her, "Don't worry, Mom, I'm not a Controller. I'm fighting, Mom. I'm fighting them and some day I'll save you."

But that would have been fatal. And I'm not someone who does emotional, stupid things. Sometimes I wish I were.

"Get to the lab," Visser One said. "Go to work."

She walked past me, like she'd already forgot-

ten I existed. I held my breath as she stepped out into the hallway.

But Ax and Tobias were gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Why? Maybe because Ax would have hurt her.

I don't know.

Then, through the massive round porthole, I saw something large and sinuous. Like a snake. But a snake that was fifty feet long and thicker than a Taxxon.

It was the yellow of poison. With a mouth that looked able to swallow a small boat.

It was coming straight for the facility. And on either side of it, like an honor guard, were a dozen Hork-Bajir in bizarre red diving suits, propelled by small water jets attached to each ankle.

I had a feeling I knew this particular snake's name.

JL followed her out in the hall, but she walked away. Swaggering. Like the Yeerk visser she was.

I watched her for longer than I should have. Then I ducked into a side door. The room was dark. I expected to find Ax and Tobias there. I did.

I found Ax very suddenly, in fact.

THWAPP!

A tail blade was pressed against my throat.

"Hey, it's me. Please don't remove my head. I use it sometimes."

"Marco!"

"We were just trying to figure out whether we should try and rescue you or go join the fight outside," Tobias said in his now-unfamiliar human voice.

"We accessed the central computer for this facility. But before we could discover anything, you came in."

Ax led me over to a glowing, three-dimensional computer display. It was weird, the way most of the place was like any standard, boring human office. Like an insurance agent's or a school secretary's office. But I guess the Yeerks didn't want to be stuck messing with human-level computers.

"Roooaaaarrrr!"

Jake's tiger roar sounded a little frazzled.

"We need to get out there and help them," Tobias said.

"No," I snapped. "They can't be helped by us rushing out there. Visser Three is coming with more Hork-Bajir. He's morphed this giant snake from planet Whatever."

They stared at me like I must be hallucinating or something.

"Look, it's him, okay? I saw it through the porthole. A huge yellow sea snake with Hork-Bajir alongside. Who do you figure that would be?"

"He cannot have had time to hear about a battle down here," Ax pointed out. "lt's too quick to be a rescue mission."