They absorb from the liquid of the Yeerk pool."

"So if we dump enough instant maple and ginger oatmeal in this Yeerk pool, they should absorb it, right?" Jake asked.

"Yes, Prince Jake. At least, I think so. Maybe."

"0h, good, I just love risking my life for a "maybe,"" Marco said.

"Hey," Tobias said. "l think we have company. Over there." I looked around. I saw two shiny steel balls. Each was about the size of a beach ball. My echolocation confirmed their size. And they were moving toward us through the air.

"Hunter robots!" Ax yelled. "We should leave!"

"Why?" I asked.

But at that very moment, I had my answer.

TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW!

Three narrow Dracon beams fired from the balls. I felt a sharp pain in my right wing. I smelled something burning. And when I looked, I saw a neat, round hole the size of a quarter burned through the leather of my wing.

"Okay, let's leave," I said. I turned and headed for the crack, with all the others alongside me.

TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW!

"Aaarrgghh!"

Tobias! He was hit. He was falling, tumbling downward, down to the Yeerk pool below us. I had a weird flash of poor Mr. Edelman falling, and then down I went after Tobias.

Bats aren't all that fast in flight. Fortunately, Tobias had a lot of experience flying. He managed to use his one good wing to slow his fall.

I caught him and grabbed with my tiny but strong little bat feet. Ax and Jake were there in a flash and we flapped madly, hauling him upward.

But the hunter robots were closing in on us.

TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW!

"Aaahhh! I've been hit!" Ax yelled. His flying weakened. It was no longer even possible to get Tobias back up to the crack.

"We're bats," Tobias gasped. "I can hang." I realized what he was telling me. If we could get him to the rocks, any rocks, he could latch on and hang. Not exactly a solution, but the only thing we could do.

Down swooped Jake, just in time. He slammed into us deliberately, pushing us toward the sloping rock ceiling. Tobias scrabbled madly and managed to grab some rock with his feet.

The hunter robots came on, almost leisurely. Maybe they had enough intelligence to realize that they had us cold.

"Ax! Do those things have any weak points?" Marco yelled.

Cassie and Marco had flown off through all this. I couldn't blame them.

But I had wondered . . .

"Visual aiming system," Ax groaned. "A lens. Like a human camera lens."

"I see it," Cassie yelled.

BONK!

BONK!

My echolocation "saw" the tiny rocks go flying. They were like bombs dropped from dive-bombers. Cassie and Marco had each grabbed small rocks, dived toward the robots, and released them.

One must have hit. One of the robots began to veer away like it was lost.

But the other was just twenty feet away when it fired. I swept my good wing over Tobias, trying to shield him.

TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW!

The Dracon beam burned the wing off. Clear off. I had a stump of a bat arm. And I fell like a stone.

Down, down, down through the damp air.

Down to the Yeerk pool.

I fell.

I saw Jake and Cassie come for me. But I knew. I knew they couldn't make it.

"Back off, you idiots!" I screamed. And then I hit.

SPUH-LOOSH!

I landed on my back. It knocked the wind out of me. I gasped for air.

But I was under the surface.

I was in liquid the color of lead. But living, seething water. The Yeerks were everywhere! All around me.

I bobbed to the surface. I tried to fire my echolocation, but the liquid kept rolling over me in sluggish little swells.

I was in the Yeerk pool!

That awful fact was like an explosion in my brain. They were everywhere! All around me! They would get me now. I couldn't escape. I flapped my single sodden wing, but all I managed to do was churn the water a little.

I started to call out to my friends. But no. No. They would kill themselves trying to rescue me. No.

Only . . . what if the Yeerks made me a Controller? I would betray all my friends. I wouldn't be able not to.

They can only make you a Controller if you de-morph, I told myself. They can't do anything to a bat. Too small a brain for a Yeerk slug. Stay in morph.

But then I began to notice something. The Yeerks didn't seem to be paying any attention to me. It was like they didn't even notice the presence of a floundering bat.

Maybe they didn't.

Those hunter robots weren't there specifically to kill us. They must have been programmed to attack any animal. The Yeerks were being careful. They knew we'd infiltrated the Yeerk pool before. So they had brought the Bio-scans to the entrances. And they had activated the hunter robots. But a lot of innocent animals must have been fried over time. Other bats had probably wandered in.

So I was probably not the first animal to end up in the Yeerk pool with a Dracon beam wound.

THUD.

A Yeerk bumped into me.

I froze. Nothing.

SLOOOP.

A Yeerk brushed against me. Nothing.

It hit me then. "Oh, man. They're blind. They can't see when they're in the pool. They can't see without using some host's eyes." So how did they find their way back to their host when it was time?

Smell? Sound? Some other sense?

I looked up and saw the domed rock roof so high up above. I looked for my friends, but I couldn't see them. Maybe they were safe. Maybe not.

If they had been taken prisoner I had to save them. But I couldn't thought-speak. They'd probably assume I'd been badly injured. Or worse.

If I called them, they might be destroyed trying to save me.

What should I do?