"Messing with your mind," Ca.s.sie agreed.

8Jerking you around,"; Tobias said.

"Trying to baffle you with ... oh, never mind,"

Prince Jake said. "The point is, you have two questions: How did Visser Three acquire this bird? And why did he morph it to attack you?"

"That's not the real question, though," Ca.s.sie said.

"The real question is what are we going to do about this Hewlett Aldershot the Third?"

Marco stuck up his hand. "Get him to change his name?"

"You know, it's a pretty good plan Visser Three has," Prince Jake pointed out. "He acquires our man Hewlett Aldershot the Third, then he walks into work at the Secret Service offices, punches up anything he wants on the computer, sits in on secret conferences, and ends up knowing everything the Secret Service knows."

8What does the Secret Service know?"; I asked.

"A lot," Marco said.

8Ah."; "It's not just what he can find out, it's who he can talk to and get access to," Rachel said.

"He can find out if any information about Yeerk activities ever gets to--"

"Whoa!" Marco shot straight up on his two wobbly legs. I can never get past thinking humans will topple over when they do that.

"What whoa?" Prince Jake asked mildly.

"Whoa, as in whoa, Rachel is right. H.a.

Third can talk to anyone, right? He can talk to his boss, right? So, if he was to walk in and say, "Boss, guess what? Parasite slugs from outer s.p.a.ce are invading Earth!"

Well, okay, they'd throw him in the nuthouse.

But if he was to walk in and say, "Parasite slugs from outer s.p.a.ce are invading Earth, and guess what, I can turn into a rhinoceros," and then he actually did turn into a rhinoceros ... well. Suddenly, boom! The secret is out. The Yeerks are screwed."

"Unless his boss is a Controller," Rachel said.

"If she were a Controller, why would Visser Three be bothering with H.a. Third?" Ca.s.sie pointed out. But then she turned to Marco. "What exactly are you thinking? Are you talking about morphing Mr. Aldershot?"

"Duh. Yeah."

"We don't do that," Ca.s.sie said. "I thought we decided we don't do that. We don't morph humans."

8I morphed Prince Jake,"; I said.

I was excited by Marco's idea. But there are times when my human friends are reluctant to do whatever it takes to hurt the Yeerks. Sometimes so am I.

8And Ca.s.sie morphed Rachel that time,"; Tobias said.

"First of all, Ax, you're not a human, so maybe it's okay if you morph Jake. Besides, Jake would have given his permission if he hadn't been infested with a Yeerk. And Rachel did give me her permission," Ca.s.sie said.

"Excuse me," Marco said with an edge of sarcasm in his voice. "Our man H.a.

Third can't give permission. He's a vegetable. He's a carrot. He's a cabbage. He's a tomato."

"I thought tomatoes were fruit," Rachel interrupted, trying to provoke Marco.

"It's called a "persistent vegetative state," thanks so much for your sensitivity, Marco," Ca.s.sie said. "But we don't know if Mr. Aldershot is that bad off. He could just be in a coma. We don't have the right to go stealing his DNA.".

"The man is a brussels sprout," Marco said.

"We'd never get in there, anyway," Prince Jake said. "Visser Three knows we know. We have to be in human form to "acquire"

Aldershot's DNA. You think we could do that with Visser Three on guard? Not likely."

Everyone looked downcast. Prince Jake was correct.

But then Ca.s.sie said, "Oh, man."

"What?" Marco demanded.

Ca.s.sie sighed. "I'm totally against this. But ...".

"But? But? But what?"

Ca.s.sie turned to me. "Ax, is it possible to acquire DNA from blood alone?"

8allyes. It should be."; "Blood?" Rachel made a face.

"We're gonna get this guy's blood? Not me, my friend. Hepat.i.tis, HIV, uh-uh."

8Diseases cannot be transmitted during acquiring,"; I said quickly. 8The acquiring process absorbs only DNA, and that DNA is isolated, encapsulated within your own bloodstream in a super-low temperature--and thus very stable--naltron molecule sphere. You see--"; "I think my brain just fell asleep,"

Marco interrupted. "So, okay, the blood is safe for us. So, Ca.s.sie, how do we get it?"

Ca.s.sie explained.

All the other humans, even Tobias, said "gross." They said "gross" very loudly and repeatedly.

I've learned something from my time with humans.

When they say something is gross, they are almost always right.

CHAPTER 8.

"So how do I acquire it without it acquiring me at the same time?" Prince Jake asked nervously.

"Don't be a big baby," Marco said. "Like you've never been bitten by a mosquito?"

"Never in cold blood," Prince Jake said.

It was several days later. My human friends attend school five days in a row, then do not attend for two days. They don't know why. But they try and arrange for missions to take place on non-school days.

We were in the barn, surrounding a transparent gla.s.s box. In the box were a number of small, fragile-looking flying insects.

"You need to catch one in your hand. Don't squeeze too hard or you'll kill it,"

Ca.s.sie said. "Like this." She stuck her hand in the box. After two unsuccessful attempts, she enclosed a mosquito in her hand.

She withdrew her hand, covered the box again, and began to focus on the mosquito. After a moment she opened her eyes. "Okay, who's next?"

"Just hand me your mosquito," Marco said.

"It probably already bit you, so maybe it's not hungry anymore."

"We can't all morph the same mosquito,"

Ca.s.sie said. "Only females suck blood.

Males are useless."

"Amen," Rachel said, then laughed.

"So what's that mosquito in your hand?" Marco demanded.

"Like I know?" Ca.s.sie said. "I don't have a magnifying gla.s.s that good. And even if I did, how exactly do you tell a male from a female?"

"That's easy," Marco said. "The males think loud belching is funny and the females don't."

"Is there any chance we could just get on with this?" Prince Jake asked.

8allyes,"; I said. 8I do not fear the bite of these tiny insects."; I put my hand inside the gla.s.s cage. I had some difficulty grabbing one of the creatures, though. Human hands are stronger and faster than Andalite hands. In the end, Ca.s.sie grabbed a mosquito and handed it to me.

8Thank you,"; I said, and began to acquire the necessary DNA.

When we had all finished Prince Jake said, "Okay. Let's go."

We morphed to birds of prey to fly quickly to the hospital. With harrier eyes I saw that the human Hewlett Aldershot the Third was still in his hospital bed. But there was a major difference.

There were now four large humans seated around him.

In the room next door to the left, we saw four more. And in the room next door to the right, another four.

Human-Controllers, no doubt. And no doubt heavily armed. Twelve armed humans to protect Hewlett Aldershot the Third from us.

8Kind of flattering, actually,"; Rachel said. 8Twelve guys? And maybe more we don't see."; 8The Yeerks must have some high-ranking people in this hospital,"; Ca.s.sie observed. 8To get two private rooms just for guards like that?"; 8So how do we get in?"; Marco wondered.

8How about a diversion?"; Rachel suggested.

8I go into elephant morph, Jake does his rhinoceros, and we rip that place apart!"; I said, 8As I understand, we each hope to bite the human, so that we can be reasonably sure of extracting sufficient blood. But Rachel, before you can go from elephant to mosquito you must pa.s.s through human. I, on the other hand, have no need of an intermediate stage. And nothing would draw the attention of a bunch of Controllers better than an Andalite."; It made perfect sense. Prince Jake agreed that it made sense. So while the others went up to the roof and morphed back to human in preparation for becoming mosquitoes, I landed in a dark, open window at the far end of the hospital.

I fluttered inside, waited, listening. I heard human breathing. My harrier eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could make out a young human female, looking very frail in her bed.

I demorphed as quickly as I could, shedding feathers and growing fur.

Suddenly the girl's eyes opened.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Are you a fairy?"

8ationo. I am an Andalite."; It was all I could think of to say. Besides, I felt reluctant to lie to a sick child.

"What's your name?"

8My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth- Isthill."; "That's a funny name," she said. Then she closed her eyes and began to sleep once more.

I took a deep breath. I moved to the door as silently as I could. I opened it and stuck one stalk eye out into the hall. Two humans in white were at the far end of the hall.

I took another deep breath. Well, I thought, I am supposed to create a diversion.

I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. The two humans did not see me till I had nearly reached them. Then their mouths opened very wide. And their faces began to change color: one turned white, the other red.

I don't know why.

"Holy ..."

"What the ..."

Obviously they were not Controllers or they would have been yelling "Andalite!" rather than "Holy" and "What the." These were innocent humans.

8h.e.l.lo,"; I said. 8Please, do not be alarmed."; "It's ... it's some weird, mutated deer!"

"It's some kind of trick. It's gotta be a trick. All right, Terry, you can come out now.

Hah-hah, big laugh."

I pa.s.sed them by and kept walking toward the heavily guarded room of Hewlett Aldershot the Third.

A human went past pushing a cart loaded with food on trays. He never looked up. He just kept looking down as he went. Then I guess he noticed my hooves.

"Aaaahhhh!" he cried, and shoved the cart so hard it turned over.

Clang-clash-Wham!