Within the wood pulp food there were messages. Hormones passing through the colony, containing information. Vague orders. Indistinct yet powerful instructions.

I was now caught up in a rush of workers off to obey the voiceless voice in their heads. Some were off to chew a new tunnel. Others were off to the egg chamber to rotate the eggs.

And I had my orders, too.

I raced along tunnels lined with chewed and digested wood pulp. Tunnels cut through the dried wood that supported the building.

I felt side tunnels open on one side, then the next. A tunnel above. Air flowed faint -- but fresh -- actually creating a tiny breeze.

There was no light. None. But it didn't matter because I was blind. I was blind, but I was not lost.

What am I doing?an alien voice asked.

I ignored it.

NO!the voice cried.

I had heard the voice before. But it came from far away and it spoke a language I didn't understand.

NO! NO! NO! Let me go!

I felt a queasy, sickening feeling inside me.

But still I powered down the tunnel, turning here, turning there. Always moving toward a goal. There was a powerful smell. It was growing stronger and stronger.

I went to it. I had to go to it. NO! Let me go! Let me go!

Down the black tunnels. Over and through the packed rush-hour streams of workers. To the center. To the core. To the heart. Help me! Help me!the voice screamed.

The voice ... my voice.

The faint, failing voice of the human named Cassie.

Me.

Me!

50 Ahhhhhhhhh!

Suddenly, I was Cassie again. I knew my name. I knew who I was.

But it no longer mattered. The termite body was out of my control. A stronger will than mine was guiding it.

The termite suddenly emerged into a vast, open space. A space that in reality was no more than two or three inches across. And yet it felt like an auditorium to me.

Suddenly I knew who had seized control of the termite brain.

I knew who had brushed my human mind aside.

She was vast. Huge beyond belief. At one end I sensed the termite head and useless, waving termite arms. From that small head and body there extended a monstrous, pulsating sack. As big as a blimp.

At the far end was a double row of sticky, slimy eggs, to be picked up and carried away by worker termites.

The queen.

I was in the chamber of the termite queen.

Thequeen!

I could feel her power. This was her world. These were all her slaves. More than slaves -- they had no will of their own.

I knew who I was again. But I felt weak and pathetic. I was unable to control the termite body I was in. That body belonged to her.

She had orders for me -- protect the egg-carrying worker termites. The orders came in smells and vague feelings, but they were impossible to refuse.

"Rachel," I called. "Marco. Ax. "

"I . . . " It was Rachel's thought-speak voice. "I ... I ... Oh, no. No! No!"

"Rachel! It's the queen. She's controlling you," I said.

"I can't... my body ... it just. . ."

"Marco! Marco can you hear me? Marco!"

"She's got me. I can't say no. I can't stop!" he cried in anguished response.

My own body motored away on its six legs. I fell in step behind two workers. Each was 51 carrying one of the gooey, precious eggs. I had to protect them. There might be enemies. We walked along the grotesque length of the queen. Toward her head.

Ants. They were the enemy. Sometimes they came. Sometimes they poured down the tunnels, looking for the eggs, to carry them off for food.

Sometimes they attacked the queen herself. The soldiers fought them. The soldiers sometimes died fighting them.

"The queen!" Rachel's voice said. "The only way . . . destroy the queen. " It was like an electric jolt in my mind! Get rid of the queen! Yes. The only way. They wouldn't be expecting that. There would be no one to stop me!

But my body was not my own. I could not make it...

The two workers plodded along before me. I could feel their hind ends with my feelers. And I knew the queen's head was just to my right. Just a half inch. Less.

The queen's head . . . feelers . . . eyes . . . like an ant!

One chance . . . focus . . . focus ... I had to trick the termite mind. I had to draw on every ounce of my strength.

If I failed, I would live out the rest of my life as a mindless slave of the termite queen. Now!

Do it now!

I swerved right. It was like moving through molasses. The queen had ordered me to go after the workers, and I was disobeying.

Ant! Ant!I screamed the word in my own head. Ant! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy the ant!

I clambered over a half dozen termites who were tending the queen. I could feel my will weakening. I couldn't get rid of the queen. I had to kill an ant.

That was my purpose -- to keep ants away from the queen.

I scampered toward the queen's head. I felt my antennae touch her. I opened my massive pincerjaws. . . .

Termites ran around insanely. They were racing, out of control, lost, confused. For a moment I did the same. The queen was gone.

I think in some way I wanted to forget who I was. What I had done. I wanted to become one of the lost, panicked termites.

"We're free! We're out! Cassie, where are you? Get out of there!" I heard a far-off voice cry.

Was it Ax? Marco? Rachel?

"Demorph!" I cried with my last shred of control.

52 "No! Cassie, no!" a voice screamed in my head. "You're inside a piece of wood!"

"Demorph!" I screamed again. Human. I wanted to be human again. Let me be human! Let me out of this place. Out of this body.

I grew. Walls pressed in around me. I filled the tunnel. I couldn't grow anymore!

Trapped! Pain. Nothing but pain! I was a swollen, vast termite. Larger than any queen.

Huge.

I couldn't grow anymore. And I couldn't stop. I was trying to become human again, to fit a human body into a space no bigger than the inside of a walnut.

Then . . . explosion!

The walls opened up. Splinters! Fresh air rushed across my hard termite skin. My head was free of the wood and growing. But my body was still trapped. Squeezing with terrible pain.

I had eyes now. They could see, but only dimly. I was still tiny, and in the air above me a huge blade as long as a passenger jet slashed downward. The wood splintered again and my body was free. I grew and grew. Arms . . . legs ... my own head.

I was on my knees on a wooden floor. Marco and Rachel stood over me. Ax had used his tail to slice open the wood. They had all escaped the colony. They had demorphed.

It was dark in the room, but there were glowing red-and-green indicator lights. And there was a computer monitor showing neat screen-saver triangles floating and reforming.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked. She bent down and put her hand on my shoulder.

I gave her a hug. Then, just as suddenly, I pushed her away. "Let me go! Don't touch me!

Don't touch me! DON'T TOUCH ME!"

Rachel was on me in a flash. She clamped her hand over my mouth. Marco grabbed my ankles and held them still.

"Cassie!" Rachel hissed. "Shut up. We're inside the Yeerk building. We're in a side room, but we can hear people in the next room!"

I was beyond caring. I struggled and fought and tried to scream.

"Ax, whatever you can do with that computer, do it!" Marco whispered urgently.

Rachel and Marco held me pinned against the floor. And slowly . . . very slowly ... my bunched muscles relaxed. I stopped fighting.

"Are you okay now?" Rachel asked.

Okay? I would never be okay again. But I nodded my head anyway. Rachel took her hand away from my mouth.