The Alien Read Free

through a blender. I swear he has my eyes.”
    â€œWhat’s gross is I’ll look at him and think, ‘Wow, is that guy cute,’” Rachel said. “Then I’ll see something that looks like Cassie. Or worse, like me!”
    â€œWhat? Rachel in love with her own looks?” Marco said, using an inflection of his mouth-sounds that humans call “sarcasm.” Then he looked troubled. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea. The Controllers could —”
    â€œUh-uh,” Prince Jake interrupted. “We’re not talking about Controllers, Yeerks, or Visser Three. We are taking a break. We’ve fought one battle after another. We destroyed the Kandrona. We beat that
Veleek
monster of theirs. And now we are taking some well-deserved vacation time. Ax wants to learn more about humans, so that’s what we’re doing.”
    I was never exactly a great student, but I could just imagine how my fellow Andalites would act when they finally rescued me. They’d ask, And I’d have to say,
    The trick would be to learn about the humans without letting them learn too much about Andalites. There were things I could never tell the humans. Things that might make them turn against me.
    â€œWe should hit the Yeerks again while they’re weak,” Rachel growled. “We know the Yeerks won’t get a new ground-based Kandrona for another week. They must still be starving for lack of Kandrona rays. We should hit them!”
    Yeerks are a race of parasitic slugs. They live inside the brains of other species. They completely dominate the host body, making it a “Controller.” There are Hork-Bajir-Controllers, Taxxon-Controllers, and more and more Human-Controllers. Any human you know might be a Controller. There is no way to tell — unless you are an Andalite.
    I sympathized with Rachel. But I also understood Prince Jake’s caution. No warrior can fight all the time.
    â€œLook, you guys,” Prince Jake said. “We hurt the Yeerks. It was a good job. But we also know that they have a replacement Kandrona being set up, so don’t assume they’re weak. Besides, if they are weak, they sure haven’t shown it. I expected to see Yeerks dying left and right, and former Controllers walking free again. Hasn’t happened. Somehow they’ve maintained.”
    â€œWe can’t know what is going on with the Yeerks,” Cassie pointed out. “Just because we haven’t
seen
them suffer doesn’t mean they haven’t.”
    â€œOkay, look, here we are again, talking about Yeerks,” Jake said impatiently. “We have just come from a very, very unpleasant battle. And we came very close to ending up dead. And it’s not the first time. So we are
going
to relax and be normal. We are
going
to the movie. And we are
going
to have fun. And no one . . .
Rachel
. . . is going to look for a fight.”
    â€œDon’t you love it when he gets all forceful like that?” Marco said to Cassie. “He’s just so macho sometimes.”
    â€œOkay, Ax,” Jake said. “Time to get dressed.”
    â€œPrince Jake, I am already wearing this garment,” I said, pointing to the thing that covered my body. “Wearing. Ing. Ing-uh.”
    It is an amazing sensation, making sounds with your mouth. Actual words are formed by vibrating your throat and positioning your tongue. But some sounds are better than others. “Ing” is a wonderful sound to make.
    â€œDon’t call me ‘Prince,’” Prince Jake said.
    â€œAx, you’re dressed like an escapee from the Winter Olympics,” Marco said.
    â€œYou can’t go out in public wearing tights and a spandex top,” Rachel said. “It’s a major fashion ‘don’t.’ Here.”
    She handed me a bag. In the bag were items of clothing. It took several