Or, more likely, scared of who was inthat Bug fighter.

The Bug fighter swooped overhead, circled, and came to land in a pile of rocks.

"l can't believe the radar back at the base doesn't pick that up," Tobias said.

"Radar. Is that the human tool that bounces radio beams off objects? I don't mean to offend, but any Andalite child could build a radar-cloak from the pieces of his toys."

"Somehow you are grinding my nerves, Ax," Rachel said grumpily.

"And that's supposed to be Marco's job."

We followed the horse-Controllers around the back of the rocks. The Bug fighter was waiting there, already on the ground. But the door didn't open until the horse-Controllers were assembled before it. Fear was radiating from them.

So much fear. It gave me a pretty good idea who was in that Bug fighter.

The door of the Bug fighter opened.

Out stepped a Hork-Bajir warrior. Seven feet of razor-bladed death. The Hork-Bajir swung his horned snakehead left and right, all the while holding a portable Dracon beam weapon.

Then, when it looked safe, the other occupant of the Bug fighter stepped out into the rapidly cooling air.

He was an Andalite. At least, he had an Andalite body. But of course he was no true Andalite.

"Visser Three," I said. It was not a surprise.

"Yeah," Jake said grimly. "Suddenly all this just got more serious." Visser Three: leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth. Leader of the invasion.

The only Yeerk in all of history to successfully seize control of an Andalite body. The only Yeerk in all history to gain the Andalite morphing power and Andalite thought-speak abilities.

Our greatest enemy. The human race's greatest enemy.

"Report," he said in a tone of complete casual ness.

The lead horse-Controller began to reply in Galard."Visser, gahallum fillak—"

"Don't waste my time. Did you succeed? Or did you fail?"

"Visser, kir fillan—"

FWAPPPP!

The visser's Andalite tail moved so swiftly it cracked the air. The deadly blade stopped a millimeter from the horse-Controller's throat. A twitch would send his head rolling.

"Did you penetrate the facility, yes or no?"

According to Ax, the horse-Controller answered yes.

"Did you see the object the humans are hiding in there? The object we know is constructed of nonhuman alloys?"

Again, he answered yes.

"And can you now tell me what it is?"

The horse-Controller hesitated. And that's when the visser twitched his Andalite tail.

"Fools! Idiots! lncompetents!" the visser screamed in enraged thought-speak. "Weeks have been wasted setting up this effort. First we lose that clumsy fool, Korin Five-Four-Seven, when he was bitten by a snake. And now we've lost poor Jillay Nine-Two-Six!"

The visser indicated the no-longer-in-one-piece horse-Controller, like it had been someone else's fault he'd been lost.

"And now you don't even know what you saw?"

He was enraged. And Visser Three mad is beyond dangerous. His horse-Controllers backed away as far as they dared.

"l will have the secret!" the visser said in a suddenly low, sinister, thought-speak voice. "l will have it!"

For a while no one moved or spoke or even breathed. No one, me included, wanted to take any chance of attracting the furious visser's at- tention.

Then, "AII right, I've punished the one responsible. Transport will come for the rest of you.

We still have the backup plan. It was always the better plan. We'll simply take control of a few of the humans working at this base. Have you idiots at least identified the right targets to infest?"

"Jihal,Visser!" one of the horse-Controllers said.

"Good. Then you can live. We'll target the right humans, and seize them tomorrow at . . ." Suddenly he stopped. "Those horses. What are they doing with you? They are not our people."

In Galard,the horse-Controller explained that it was normal for horses to herd together. It was good for real horses to be there. It provided camouflage of sorts.

This was not the answer the visser wanted to hear. He aimed his Andalite stalk eyes directly at me. "Fool, do you not realize that the Andalite bandits who plague us can morph any animal they like, including horses? I will have to kill these creatures, just to be sure."

"No one move. No one act like they heard anything," I hissed to the others. I lowered my big golden head and crunched up a mouthful of grass. And then I did what horses do. And I wasn't modest about it.

The visser laughed derisively. "l suppose they are real horses, after all." I took a relieved breath.

"Still, better kill them."

"Uh-oh," I said.

The Hork-Bajir warrior leveled his Dracon beam at us. A second Hork- Bajir came running from inside the Bug fighter.

I felt a thrill of terror. I ordered myself to run away. But I wasn't the only creature in my head right then. Minneapolis Max was in there, too. And he didn't feel like running away.

My hindquarters bunched up and fired every muscle fiber at once. And, before I knew what was happening, I was running. But not running away.

I ran straight for the first Hork-Bajir.

"HrrrEEEEE-HEEE-he-he!" I whinnied. I reared up, all the way back till I was standing on my hind legs, and I flailed madly with my forehooves.

I couldn't exactly aim my hooves, mind you. Horses aren't predators. But I flailed away and just as the Hork-Bajir was pressing the trigger...

BONK!

"Raaahhhh!" the Hork-Bajir bellowed. He dropped the Dracon beam from his hands. It clattered on the ground, and down I came. I landed directly with both hooves on the weapon.

. CRUNCH!

I'd like to say it was deliberate. But the truth is that with my side-vision horse eyes I could barely even see my hooves, let alone aim them. But sometimes luck is as good as skill.

"Haul butt!" Jake yelled.

NowMinneapolis Max was ready to run away. So I ran. We all ran.

The two Hork-Bajir took off in pursuit.

"lf they catch us, we're dog food," Rachel said. "Two Hork-Bajir versus six horses? Not a prayer."

She was right. And to be honest, if it had been a hundred horses versus two Hork-Bajir, the horses would have lost. "How fast are Hork-Ba-jir?" I asked Rachel. She had morphed a Hork-Bajir once.

"Fast," she said grimly.

We bolted. We hauled. But the two bounding Hork-Bajir were hot on our trail.

Then we saw spotlights bouncing wildly toward us. Humvees! The security troops from the base were coming out to investigate.

We ran and the Hork-Bajir hesitated. When I looked back next, they were gone.

"Well, that was stupid from start to finish," Rachel said as we got far from Zone 91. "We could have gotten killed. And for what? Over something even the Yeerks don't recognize."

"Whatever that thing is, it sure doesn't look like a spaceships Marco admitted.

"Or a secret weapon," Jake said. "And it doesn't look human, but who knows?"

"lt is not a spaceships Ax said. "0r a weapon. But it is also nothuman."

"Well, I guess we'll probably never find out what it is," I said with a sigh.

"Why won't you find out?" Ax asked.

"Because it's not worth risking our lives again," I said. "lf the Yeerks don't even know what it is —"

"Of course the Yeerks don't know what it is," Ax said calmly. "They have never been aboard an Andalite Dome ship."