"Can't we help him?"

It was Cassie. She and Rachel had defied Prince Jake's order to split up. They were with us now as we watched, horrified and transfixed.

"We have to stay clear of this," Prince Jake said. "But maybe it's finally starting. It may just be this one guy, but there may be more. Finally! I expected this to start happening weeks ago.

Yeerks dying! Controllers suddenly free and human again." He grinned. It was a savage look.

"They'll die, and their hosts will be free! At first, people will think they're nuts. But when they have ten, twenty, fifty people all yelling about the Yeerks? They won't be able to cover that up. Not for long!"

17 His voice had risen, becoming higher, and the words came out faster. He was obviously excited.

Suddenly, an ambulance raced up, followed by two police cars, all with flashing lights and screaming sirens.

"Hah!" Marco said. "I'm sure some of the cops are Controllers, but they can't all be. Jake's right. The truth will get out! This is going to work! The truth is going to come out!"

"The replacement Kandrona is supposed to be here soon," Rachel pointed out. "We should have seen a lot more of this. The Yeerks must have found a way to keep this from happening till now."

Rachel is a true warrior. She does not underestimate her enemies. She was not ready to start talking about victory.

But the others were all very happy. They believed that many Yeerks would die, and the hosts would be free to tell the world the truth.

They believed they had won the war.

It made me sad for them. Because I knew the truth. I knew how the Yeerks operated.

I almost told Prince Jake right then. He has a special reason to be hopeful. His brother, Tom, is a Controller. There is nothing Prince Jake would want as much as his brother's freedom.

But I knew this screaming Controller with the dying Yeerk in his head was just an oversight.

Something had gone wrong with the Yeerk's secret efforts, but I knew that there would be no witnesses.

I knew what would happen to this poor, shouting human.

Jake was my prince how, my leader. But if I told him ... it would lead to questions. And I could not answer questions. Not without revealing the terrible truth behind the law of Seerow's Kindness.

Humans rushed from the ambulance and the police cars. Most, as Marco had said, were probably true, normal humans. They grabbed the screaming man, who was still pulling the Yeerk from his ear.

"Oh, Lord! What is that? He's pulling his brains out!" one policeman cried in horror.

"The Yeerks! They're here!" the human screamed. "Die! Die! Get out of me and die!

Freedom!"

The police surrounded the man and hustled him to the ambulance. It was hard to see, unless you were expecting it: the moment when one of the policemen drew a small, steel cylinder from his pocket and pressed it against the back of the man's neck.

18 "I can't believe it!" Cassie exulted. "Maybe it's really going to happen. Maybe people will realize the truth!"

"They have a real, live Yeerk now," Prince Jake said. "They can't cover this up forever."

Again I thought of telling them the truth. That the human was already gone. That the Yeerk slug would crumble into dust. That no evidence would be left behind.

But even though these humans were my friends, even though we fought side by side, there were secrets I could not tell them.

I could not tell them how a race of parasitic slugs had come to be a danger to the entire galaxy.

I could not tell them why we Andalites had to fight the Yeerks. Why we had no choice but to fight them. Why we hated them so deeply.

We have secrets, we Andalites. And the greatest secret of all is our own guilt.

"This is great," Prince Jake said, smiling.

"Yes," I said. "Great."

19 Chapter Four

As the sun rose above the horizon the next morning, I stood by the small stream where I drink each day. Rough grasses, mixed with fallen leaves and pine needles, ran right down to the water. The sun was just barely visible through a gap in the forest trees.

"From the water that gave birth to us," I said, and dipped my right forehoof into the water. It was the beginning of the morning ritual.

"From the grass that feeds us," I said, and moved back to crush a small tuft of grass beneath the same hoof."

"For the freedom that unites us." I spread my arms wide.

"We rise to the stars." I looked with all four of my eyes at the rising sun.

I sighed. This was really pretty pointless. I had never been a big believer in all the rituals. I mean, if you're going to be a warrior, you have to do it. And any aristhwho gets caught rushing through the ritual is verbally reprimanded.

But still, I was about a billion Earth miles from my home world. It was hard to see why I should still be acting like a good little warrior- cadet. I was all alone among aliens. Who cared if I performed the rituals?

I bowed low. "Freedom is my only cause. Duty to the people, my only guide. Obedience to my prince, my only glory."

I hesitated. Tobias had landed in the tree above.

"The destruction of my enemies, my most solemn vow."

I straightened up again, then assumed the fighting stance. "I, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, Andalite warrior-cadet, offer my life."

With that, I drew my tail blade forward and pressed it against my own throat.

Then I relaxed my tail. This was the part of the ritual that called for contemplation. You were supposed to think about the parts of the ritual and ask yourself if you were living up to all of it.

The destruction of my enemies, my most solemn vow. That was the part that stayed in my thoughts.

I had not destroyed my enemy. My enemy was terrible and powerful. And if I tried to destroy him, I would be the one killed.

But that did not matter. What mattered was the enemy. The creature who had murdered my brother. Not in battle, but as he lay almost help less.

It was the humans who'd told me the rest of Elfangor's story. As the dome went crashing into Earth's sea, my brother's fighter was damaged by the Yeerks.

20 He landed in an abandoned construction site. There were five human youths passing by: Jake, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias.

Elfangor was dying, and he knew that Earth was now defenseless. He told the five youths about the Yeerk threat. And then he did what he should not have done. He gave them a weapon to fight the Yeerks.

He gave them the Andalite power to morph.

Never in all of history has any non-Andalite been given the power to morph. It's against our major law: the law of Seerow's Kindness.

Only one other creature can morph: the Yeerk who invaded and took over an Andalite body.

He is the only Andalite-Controller. There are hundreds of thousands of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and humans enslaved that way, but only one Andalite.

Only one Yeerk has an Andalite body, and the power to morph.

The Abomination: Visser Three.

The humans told me of Elfangor's last battle. How Visser Three had morphed into a huge, monstrous creature. How Elfangor had fought to the very end, lashing out helplessly. How Visser Three had opened his jaws and . . .

The humans don't know it, but if Elfangor had lived, he would have been in huge trouble. He would have been demoted, at very least. He would no longer have been a prince. Elfangor as the great hero would have been finished.

"The destruction of my enemies, my most solemn vow."

I had faced Visser Three more than once. He was still living. I had no excuse, except that I was still just an aristh. If I were a full warrior, it would have been total dishonor for me.