Clothing is pliable fabric designed to cover the human body. Sometimes as protection against the cold. But mostly, as I understand it, because humans believe much of their body to be unacceptable. They are right, of course, but they cover all the wrong parts: There is nothing uglier than a human nose.

The loose-hanging skin tightened and became wings. My ears grew larger. And of course, like almost all Earth creatures, I acquired a mouth.

I could see quite well. Not as well as a bird of prey, but almost as well as a human. But sight is not the special power of bats. The special power bats have is the ability to fire a series of ultrasonic sounds that bounce off solid objects and send back a sonic picture to the bats.

The Leeran sun was dropping fast. The bat eyes were already straining to see. But I had a perfectly clear picture of the rocks around me.

Okay, let's go find this Andalite honcho,"; Marco said.

I flapped my wings and flew. Once more in the company of my human friends.

I felt strangely at home. As though, despite Prince Jake's anger and Marco's sneering and Rachel's outright suspicion, I belonged with them.

For some reason at that moment, even with the images of death aboard the Ascalin fresh in my mind, I saw myself far away, in a very different body, eating delicious cinnamon buns with a mouth.

I wanted to be back there. I wanted to be back on Earth.

Captain Samilin had sold out to the Yeerks.

Was I selling out to the humans?

I flapped my leathery wings and fired my echolocation bursts and flew just inches above the rocks. The bat's echolocation sense created a sort of picture, like a sketchy line drawing, with edges all sharp and clear and surfaces just sort of scribbled in.

I dived between rocks, and rose just millimeters before hitting obstructions. I turned left, right, left in sudden, acrobatic jerks.

This is insane!"; Marco yelled.

Insane can mean several things when used by Marco. It can mean "stupid" or it can mean "fun." I think in this case it meant fun. Because as insane as it was, it was exhilarating.

allyee-hah!"; Rachel yelled, then laughed her feral, dangerous laugh.

Soon it was a sort of precarious game: How close could I fly to the jagged rock edges without ripping a wing or crushing my fragile bat bones in an impact?

And it took my mind off darker, muddier thoughts.

Then the exquisitely sensitive bat ears, the ears that could hear the echoes of hypersonic echolocation heard something new. A hum. A vast, pulsating hum that grew and grew as we flew on.

Prince Jake, I believe we are hearing the Andalite sensors,"; I said.

Oh, that's what that is?"; Cassie remarked. Almost like music."; We flew on, low, occasionally scraping on jutting rocks. Then-- Whoa! Pull up! Pull up!"; Cassie cried. She was in the lead.

I shot upward.

TSEEEWWWW!

The blast of the Dracon beams and Shredders was deafening. The flashes were blinding to the bat's eyes. Hork-Bajir, twenty at least, were piling up against a group of three Andalites and two Leerans. The fighting was intense. It would be over in a few minutes.

It would be a slaughter. But Prince Jake had ordered us to stay out of it. And I would not abandon him and my human friends again.

And yet, a phalanx of Taxxons was moving in to finish off the wounded Andalites who had already fallen.

To my surprise, it was Cassie who said, Jake, we should do something."; Didn't I say we had to stay out of the battles?"; Prince Jake demanded.

all yeah, that's what you said,"; Tobias answered. So what are we really going to do?"; Prince Jake hesitated. Then he said, Okay, let's rescue them. Land, demorph, remorph, fast, fast, fast!"; But before we could land, the entire rock bowl where the Andalites and Leerans stood exploded.

Ka-Booom!

The shock wave sent me spinning through the air.

I landed on my back, half-unconscious, deafened, blood in my eyes. And overhead the Yeerk ground attack fighter swept by to the hoarse cheering of the Hork-Bajir.

A huge, clawed foot landed inches from me.

Hork-Bajir ran over me, stampeding in a forward rush, ignoring the tiny, winged creature that was me. They fired their Dracon beams steadily, yelling with triumph in their voices.

I heard no answering Andalite Shredders.

The Yeerk forces were advancing. The Andalite line was broken.

Prince Jake!"; I called.

Tobias!"; Get in the air!"; Prince Jake yelled back to all of us. Everyone who can fly, up!

Get up!"; Could I fly? Yes! I rose from the ground just as the first wave of Taxxons came rushing forward.

Taxxons are huge, long worms. Like Earth centipedes, only much larger. Taxxons live in a state of eternal hunger. Desperate hunger. They will eat anything--dead or alive.

Even their own fallen or injured brothers.

I fluttered past an open, questing Taxxon mouth. I saw a fellow bat, flying just a few feet above me. I saw it very clearly. And then, in an instant, it was gone. Simply gone.

Where's Tobias?"; Rachel cried.

Tobias!"; I cried. He ... he disappeared!"; What do you mean, he disappeared?"; Prince Jake demanded.

I saw him. I was watching him. And he just disappeared."; Now, twenty feet up, I could see more of the battlefield. The line of Hork-Bajir was already far ahead of us. Taxxons writhed across the dark landscape below.

If there were Andalites anywhere nearby, they had been destroyed. In my mind I pictured the tactical display aboard the Ascalin. I could see where we were and where the forces had been arrayed.

We've lost,"; I whispered, not sure if anyone even heard me. We've lost."; As if to confirm my grim realization, I saw the engine flares of a dozen or more distant Andalite ships rising from the surface of planet Leera. Rising, and running for their lives.

We stood, in our own bodies, amid the filthy, reeking waste the Taxxons had left behind. We hadn't found Tobias.

Rachel was alternately crying and raging.

Marco was sitting, silent. Cassie kept holding on to Prince Jake. And Prince Jake kept pulling away to pace, to mutter to himself, to wonder half-aloud what he should have done. What he could have done.

I stood off by myself. I couldn't help feeling that I was to blame. I was humiliated. I felt sick. I had turned away from my friends and trusted my own people instead. One of my own people had betrayed us. And the rest of my people ... well, they had probably fought well and bravely. But they had lost.

Just like the Hork-Bajir war. We had lost again, and condemned another race to slavery under the Yeerks.

And what a race! The Leerans were amphibians. They could travel in water or on land, although they built their cities underwater. But the terrifying thing was that the Leerans possessed limited but very real psychic powers.

Leeran-Controllers would be able to see past morphs and into the mind inside. It would be impossible to fool them for long. And if Leeran-Controllers were ever brought to Earth, their powers would soon reveal the truth of the Animorphs.

Not that the Animorphs would ever likely be able to return to Earth.

It was Cassie who shook me out of my dark thoughts. In a whisper she said, "Ax. I don't think Jake wants to have to ask you again, but what do you think we should do?"

I don't know. We've lost. We're on a strange planet that will soon be under Yeerk domination. We've failed the Leerans, as we failed the Hork-Bajir. As we are failing the humans."; Past Cassie's head I saw distant red flares from Yeerk ships dropping from orbit to land more and more troops on the continent. Soon the continent would be an impregnable garrison of Yeerk forces.