But Ax dodged nimbly aside.

"l am not human, Marco. It's not so easy to sneak up on me," Ax said calmly.

"Containment failure in two minutes and ten seconds. Have a nice day."

Visser Three reared back up and aimed once more for Ax. This time the massive head came down faster. Ax jumped left and tried to whip his tail at the creature's head. But he tripped. One hoof caught on a piece of debris. He lurched. He stumbled.

"Got you!" Visser Three cried in glee.

The jaws closed around Ax!

But then, with Ax literally in his mouth, Visser Three stopped suddenly.

He stopped because a very large, very angry grizzly had just grabbed his midsection.

"Let him go," Rachel growled. "Let him go or I'll rip you in two." I was shocked that she was speaking to Visser Three. But I guess she had no choice.

The visser kept his jaws still. He could have chomped Ax in half. But he didn't.

"lt's a standoff, Andalite," Visser Three said. "You have me, and I have your fellow terrorist here. But the water will be pouring in soon, and you'll drown in that body."

"Let him go!" Rachel said and tightened her grip till her claws drew yellow-and-green ooze from the punctures in the snake body.

"l guess we have a negotiation here," the visser said.

I stepped in close, took careful aim at the snake head, drew back my arm, powered the massive bunched muscles in my neck and shoulders, put four hundred pounds of weight into it and punched the visser in the nose.

"Negotiate this," I said, as my fist met the squishy-soft snake snout.

The visser's snake eyes flew open. His jaw flew open. He sort of hovered for a few seconds. Then his head hit the ground.

He slithered, mostly unconscious, back into the water. A trail of green ooze marked where he'd been.

Ax himself was covered with the same disgusting green slime.

"Thank you," he said, calmly.

"Containment failure in one minute and forty seconds. Have a nice day,"

"We have to get out of here!" I yelled.

Tobias flapped up off the head of a screaming Hork-Bajir. "Time to bail, boys and girls!"

"Containment failure suspended at one minute and forty seconds. Have a nice day."

"What?"

"lt's Visser One!" Cassie said, loping over to us, a wolf who'd been through a bad half hour. She was cut in more places than I could count.

"You should have finished her off when you had the chance, Marco!" Rachel raged. "Now I'll take care of it."

She lowered her humongous, furry bulk to the ground and went barreling away on all fours back toward the building. Ax ran with her, his deadly tail held high.

"Marco, you know what they're going to do," Jake said urgently.

I nodded my thick gorilla head. "Yeah, Jake. I know."

"lt's your call," Jake said neutrally.

"Yeah."

I just stood there, frozen, as Rachel and Ax reached the door of the building.

"Jake. You and Cassie and Tobias morph, okay? I have to go and ... I don't know."

"Go," Jake said. "We'll have gills within a minute. Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"Do what's right. Forget about what anybody thinks. Do what's right." That's my friend Jake. That's his answer to anything, I guess: Do what's right. And somehow, he always seems to know just what that is. Or at least he thinks he does. Jake's a natural hero. Heroes always know what's right.

Me? I'm a comedian. All I know is what's funny. And what isn't.

J. found them in her office. That's where she had gone to override the computer. She stood, defiant behind her desk, with a handheld Dracon beam.

TSEEEWWW!

She fired! The blazing hot beam of light burned a neat semicircle out of Rachel's right shoulder.

"Rrrroooowwwwrrrr!" she bellowed in pain.

Visser One turned the Dracon beam on Ax.

FWAPPP!

Ax's tail blade was too fast for me to see. But I saw the gash on Visser One's human arm. And I saw the Dracon beam drop.

Rachel was on her in a flash. Grizzlies can be

very fast when they need to be, or when they are mad. And Rachel was mad.

Her sheer momentum knocked Visser One sprawling across the room. And when she tried to stand up, Rachel was over her.

It was no contest. Bear against human. Morphed bear against human-Controller. It was hopeless. Visser One might as well have been a rag doll. With one sweeping blow of her daggered paw, Rachel could knock Visser One's head from her shoulders.

"NO!" I yelled.

Rachel swiveled her head and stared at me with nearsighted bear eyes.

"Shut up, Marco!"

"l said no! Don't do it!"

"She's a Yeerk visser," Ax pointed out calmly.

"No," I said again. "She's my mother."

It seemed like a very long time during which no one moved. Visser One, my mother, had heard nothing, of course. I'd thought-spoken only to Rachel and Ax.

"Your mother's dead," Rachel said.

"No. I thought she was. This is her. Or was her. And maybe will be again someday if... if she lives."

Rachel hesitated. Then, almost angrily, but really with very little force for a bear, she tossed my mother's body aside.

"Thanks," I said.

But Ax was not so easily convinced. "Marco, she remains a danger to us."

"Maybe not," I said. "Look." I pointed to the big round window that looked out onto the sea. There, just beyond the glass bubble, was a monstrous yellow serpent. Visser Three.

"He saw us spare her life," I said. "How do you think Visser Three would interpret that?"