"I think it's a way to warn all the other wolves that we're here, so we don't run into any other packs and get in fights," Cassie suggested. Which sounded perfectly reasonable. Until you saw that "Cassie" had her head tilted back and her snout pointed at the sky and was yodeling like an idiot.

I flapped my wings and broke out from under the trees. The city and the suburbs were far behind me now. We had traveled pretty far in an hour's time. It was about the same time of day as my second sighting of the invisible ship. The time when it had been heading toward the mountains.

I swooped back down into the trees. "You guys keep moving. I'm going up top to look around."

"Be careful," Rachel said.

I banked left around a tree, then flapped my way back up into the sun. I climbed hard and fast, using a lot of energy. The exercise helped distract me. It's hard feeling sorry for yourself when you're working out big time.

After a while I was able to catch a nice thermal and get some easy altitude. I could still see the little wolf pack, moving like it had a single mind, flowing around the trees, swift and sure.

I tried to imagine what it must be like to be a wolf. The amazing sense of smell. The incredible hearing. All that confident power, those ripping teeth, the cool intelligence.

Maybe later I would ask Jake or Rachel about it.

Then you could ask them what it was like to be human. Maybe they can tell me about that, too, I thought bitterly.

Stop it, Tobias, I ordered myself. Stop it.

I guess I felt that if I ever started to feel really sorry for myself, I might never stop.

I kept a sharp eye out on the sky above, but it was probably still too early for the ship to come. If it even came. There was no reason to think it kept some kind of schedule.

Then, down below, I saw something that caught my attention. There was a convoy of trucks and Jeeps moving along a narrow, snaking dirt road. Maybe five vehicles. They had the markings of the Park Service. But they seemed to be in a big hurry.

They drove to a lake that I had just glimpsed up ahead. By the shore of the lake, they pulled off the road. Then, to my surprise, several dozen uniformed men jumped from the trucks and began to fan out through the woods.

They were carrying guns. But not rifles or even pistols. I could see them clearly. They were carrying automatic weapons.

22 Suddenly, movement in the sky! What the -

To my left I spotted a pair of helicopters. They zipped just inches above the trees. They began to circle the lake. These also had Park Service markings.

This is all wrong, I told myself. These guys don't act or move like Park Rangers. These guys move like an army.

And as I watched, half a dozen of the armed men surrounded a small patch of bright yellow.

It was a tent.

Two people - they looked like college types - were cooking over a little fire outside the tent.

I could see the expressions of total amazement and fear when they suddenly realized they were surrounded by six men with automatic weapons.

The two campers were marched back to the nearest truck and driven away at high speed.

I don't know what story the two campers were told. Maybe the Park Rangers told them there was a dangerous fugitive in the area. Or maybe they said there was a forest fire. I don't know.

I just know those two campers were out of there before they knew what hit them.

The two choppers circled the lake. Then they landed in a small clearing at the far side of the lake at the same time.

It was more than a mile away. Far, even for my hawk's eyes, in the slanting light of afternoon. But I could still see what came out of those helicopters.

Out they leaped, one after another.

Seven feet tall. The most dangerous-looking creatures you'll ever want to see. Foot-long, razor-sharp blades raked forward from their snake heads. More blades at their elbows, wrists, and knees. Feet like Tyrannosaurus rex.

The shock troops of the Yeerks.

Hork-Bajir warriors.

23 CHAPTER 8

"Hork-Bajir!"

The first time I'd seen them was at the construction site. I was still fully human then. It was while Visser Three was taunting the fallen Andalite. The five of us had been cowering behind a low wall. A Hork-Bajir had been within a few feet of us.

The Andalite told us they had once been a good people, the Hork-Bajir. That despite their fearsome appearance, they were a gentle race.

But the Hork-Bajir were all Controllers now. They all carried the Yeerk slug in their brains.

And they were no longer gentle.

I made a sharp turn back. I had to warn the others. I passed over a group of the Park Rangers, and swooped low enough to read one man's watch. My friends had been in morph for more than an hour.

Great. Low on time, and the Hork-Bajir are here.

I soon spotted the wolf pack, still trotting along resolutely, never tiring. Pausing only for Jake to pee.

I dived toward them. Just over their heads I pulled up suddenly.

"Yowl! Yip! Rrawr!"

They yelped and scampered around. Jake bared his fangs at me.

I came to rest on a decayed log.

Instantly, as if on command, the others started fanning out around me, encircling me. The five of them were acting like a wolf pack surrounding prey. In their own way they kind of reminded me of Hork-Bajir.

"Hey, it's just me, relax," I said.

No answer. Jake snarled a brief command at one of the others.

Wait a minute. Five? Five wolves?

Jake, who wasn't really Jake, leaped at me.

Whoa!

Wolves don't usually hurt humans, but they will definitely eat a bird when they're hungry enough. And one thing you don't ever want to see is a hungry wolf, yellowed fangs bared, gold-brown eyes glaring, fur bristling, coming at you.

I flapped my wings hard.

The big male wolf went shooting past. Barely. But the rest were all around me!

24 I flapped again and got airborne, but just a few inches. I was skimming wildly over the pine-needle carpet, flapping for all I was worth, with five determined wolves hot on my tail.

SWOOOOM! I caught the tiniest headwind, but it was all I needed.

I was up! Up and out of there, while the wolves yowled and snapped their powerful jaws in frustration below me.

Ten minutes later I found a second wolf pack. This time I counted. Four wolves.

Still, I was cautious. "Is that you guys?"

"Who else would it be?" Marco asked.

"Don't ask," I said. "Look, we have trouble." I flapped down to a low branch and rested my wings. I was still a little shaken up from my close call with the wrong wolves.

"There's a lake just a little way ahead. It's crawling with Park Rangers who aren't really Park Rangers."

"Yeah, I thought I smelled water. And humans," Cassie said.

"How do you know they aren't real Park Rangers?" Jake asked.

"Because real Park Rangers don't carry machine guns," I said. "Plus, they don't hang around with Hork-Bajir."

"Hork-Bajir?" Cassie asked shakily. "You're sure?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "It's kind of hard to confuse them with anything else. The Park Rangers are clearing out the area around the lake. They hustled some campers out of there real fast. At gunpoint."

"Hork-Bajir," Marco said with distaste. "I really don't like those guys." Rachel asked, "This lake, it's in the same direction your big invisible ship was moving?"

"It's in a perfectly straight line," I said. "Whatever that ship was, I'd bet anything it was heading for that lake."

"And judging by the way you say these Park-Ranger Controllers and Hork-Bajir are acting, it's on its way again," Marco said thoughtfully.