Suddenly a dark shape swooped low over our heads. "Lights!" Tobias said. "Up ahead on the beach. There's a bunch of people moving in a line with flashlights, like they're searching for something. You can't see them yet because they're hidden by that dune. But they'll be here in a couple of minutes."

"Who are they?" Jake demanded.

"l can't tell," Tobias said. "My eyes may be great during the day, but at night I don't see any better than you do. I'm a hawk, not an owl. Fortunately, I still hear pretty well. You guys hide in the dunes. I'll be right back."

With that he was gone.

"Come on," Jake said. "He's right. Let's hide in the dunes."

We crouched down in a pocket between two dunes. I lay flat on my belly in the cold sand and peered through the tall sea grass, focusing on the bright line of the surf.

Tobias was back a few minutes later.

" It's them," he said. He came to rest on a piece of driftwood. " It's a group from The Sharing. Chapman is with them." He turned his head to look at Jake. "Tom is with them, too."

The Sharing is a front organization for the Yeerks. Supposedly it's this group for all ages, like Girl Scouts or whatever. In reality it's a way for the Controllers to try and recruit new voluntary hosts. As impossible as it may seem, some humans actually decide to become hosts for the Yeerks. The Yeerks like it that way. It's easier for them to have a voluntary host instead of a host that resists their control.

17 The Sharing is very subtle, of course. People are brought along very slowly, over time. New members have no idea what it's all about at first. They think it's just fun and games.

I don't know when they tell the members what's really happening. By then I guess it's too late.

They either become hosts voluntarily, or, like Jake's brother Tom, they are taken, anyway.

"Tom is with them?" Jake asked.

" I'm pretty sure," Tobias said. "Some of the senior members - Chapman and Tom - are following behind the others. I could hear some of what they were saying. They're very worried about that fragment of Andalite ship."

"So it is Andalite?" Rachel asked, excited.

"l guess so," Tobias said. "l heard something else, too." The way he hesitated made me tense up. "What?"

"Something about Visser Three having visions. That's what they said. Visions. I guess the visions made the Visser cranky. He was on the mother ship at the time and decided to shove a Hork-Bajir out of an airlock because he broke the Visser's concentration."

"It's because of Visser Three's Andalite body," Marco said.

"That's the connection. These dreams or visions or whatever they are must be some kind of communication that's only supposed to be heard by Andalites."

Suddenly I saw the line of flashlights swing into view. There must have been twenty people strung across the beach, all looking down at the sand, moving forward slowly.

"They're searching for any other fragments," I whispered.

A part of the line stopped moving. I heard someone yelling. Others came running up, ex cited.

"What did they find?" Jake wondered.

"I don't. . ." Then, in a flash, it came to me. "Our footprints! Four sets of fresh footprints that suddenly turn off into the dunes!"

"Let's get out of here," Jake hissed. "Now!"

Too late!

The flashlight beams raced across the rippling sand and up the side of the dune. In an instant a dozen flashlight beams focused on the notch where we crouched.

We slithered back, down and out of sight. Then we jumped up and ran.

"We should morph!" Rachel gasped as we stumbled over the sinking sand.

18 "No!" Marco said. "Tracks. We would leave tracks that went from human to animal."

"Get them!" someone yelled. Chapman, I think. He's our assistant principal at school. I knew his voice from hearing him yell in the hall ways.

Jerky, wild beams of light danced all around us. We ducked and ran as fast as we could. But running across the sand was like running through quicksand.

Jake was gasping out whispered instructions. "Double around ... if they follow us deeper into ... the dunes ... we can double around . . . get to the water. . . then morph ..."

"There! There! I see them!"

A beam of light swept over me. I could see my shadow, long and twisted, projected on the sand. I dodged left, out of the light. Just in time.

BAM! BAM!

Gunfire!

Someone was shooting at me.

19 Chapter 6

It seemed totally crazy.

I mean, I've been in one-on-one combat to the death with seven-foot-tall Hork-Bajir war riors, and I've been shot at by Dracon beams that sort of disintegrate you slowly. But I'd never been shot at with plain old everyday guns.

It seemed nuts after all we'd been through.

BAM!BAM!BAM!

Phit! I heard something hit the sand just inches from my foot.

"Aaaahhh!" I cried in surprise.

This was real. Real! This was really happen ing.

A rough hand grabbed me and dragged me forward. Jake. I had frozen when I'd heard the bullet so close.

"They're all in the dunes!" Tobias cried. "Now's the time."

"Come on!" Jake snapped. He half dragged me up the side of the nearest dune, but by then I was moving fine all on my own. I was scurrying up the side of that hill, snatching at handholds of scrub grass, pistoning my feet into the sand.

Over the top. We slid and rolled and ran down the far side.

We were back on the beach. I stole a quick glance to the right. No lights on the beach. They were all in the dunes. Looking for us.

"Head to the water," Jake said. "Morph to fish."

"Jake," I panted. "Trout. . . they're freshwater fish . . . this is saltwater."

"You have a better idea?" he asked.

BAM!BAM!

"No," I said. We splashed into the boiling surf. As I ran I pictured the fish. I remembered being the fish. I focused as much as anyone can focus with a dozen or so Controllers chasing her and shooting.

My feet went out from under me. They had shriveled and begun to disappear. I hit the water and got a mouthful of salty foam.

I tried to keep my head above water, but my arms were rapidly disappearing. The waves were high around me as I became smaller and smaller. My clothing billowed.

20 The people from The Sharing, the Controllers, raced to the water's edge. I could see their lights, weirdly distorted as my eyes went from the air- adapted eyes of a human to the eyes of a fish.

With what was left of my ears I heard, "The tracks lead right to the water."

Tom's voice. Then Chapman's. "I don't see them. They can't swim far. The current is too strong. Fan out up and down the beach."

"Do you think these are the Andalite guerillas?"

"No. The tracks are human. Just some kids, probably. I doubt they saw anything. That fool should not have been shooting."

"Sir," a new voice said. "We found a pair of jeans in the surf. Look like they could be for a kid."

"Any identification in them?"

"No. Nothing."

"Coincidence," Chapman said. "Probably."

"If they're human, why don't we see them out there?" Tom asked. "Four sets of human tracks.

No humans in the water. Is it possible... is Visser Three wrong? What if they're not Andalites at all?"

I sank beneath the water. The morph was almost complete. But as I went under I heard Chapman laugh cruelly. "Visser Three wrong? Maybe. But I'm not the fool who's going to try and tell him."