The Invasion Read Free

up and make bandages.” Cassie’s parents are both veterinarians and she’s totally into animals. Not that this was an animal. Not exactly, anyway.
    No. I will die. The wound is fatal.
    “NO!” I cried. “You can’t die. You’re the first alien ever to come to Earth. You can’t die.” I don’t know why I was so upset. I just knew that way down deep inside, it hurt me to think of him dying.
    I am not the first. There are many, many others.
    “Other aliens? Like you?” Tobias demanded.
    The alien shook his big head slowly, side to side.Not like me.
    Then he cried out in pain, a silent sound that echoed horribly inside my mind. For a moment, I had actually
felt
him dying.
    Not like me,he repeated.They are different.
    “Different? How?” I said.
    I will remember his answer forever.
    He said,They have come to destroy you.

CHAPTER 3
     
    T hey have come to destroy you.It was strange, the way we all just knew he was telling the truth. No one said “no way” or “you’re making it up.” We all just knew. He was dying, and he was trying to warn us of something terrible.
    They are called
Yeerks.
They are different from us. Different from you, as well.
    “Are you telling us they’re already here on Earth?” Rachel demanded.
    Many are here. Hundreds. Maybe more.“Why hasn’t anybody noticed them?” Marco said reasonably. “I think someone would have mentioned it at school.”
    You do not understand. Yeerks are different. They have no body like yours or mine. They live in the bodies of other species. They are …
    I guess he couldn’t think of a word to explain Yeerks, so he closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. Suddenly a bright picture popped into my head. I saw a gray-green, slimy thing like a snail without its shell, only bigger, the size of a rat, maybe. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
    “I’m guessing that was a Yeerk,” Marco said. “Either that or a very big wad of slimy chewing gum.”
    They are almost powerless without hosts. They—
    Suddenly we felt that blast of pain, straight from the alien. I could also feel his sadness. He knew his time was almost up.
    The Yeerks are parasites. They must have a host to live in. In this form they are known as Controllers. They enter the brain and are absorbed into it, taking over the host’s thoughts and feelings. They try to get the host to accept them voluntarily. It is easier that way. Otherwise the host may be able to resist, at least a little.
    “Are you saying they take over
human beings?”
Rachel asked. “People? These things take over their bodies?”
    “Look, this is serious stuff,” I said. “You shouldn’t be telling us. We’re just kids, you know. This is, like, something the government should know about.”
    We had hoped to stop them,the alien continued.Swarms of their Bug fighters were waiting when our Dome ship came out of Z-Space. We knew of their mother ship and were ready for the Bug fighters, but the Yeerks surprised us—they had hidden a powerful Blade ship in a crater of your moon. We fought, but … we lost. They have tracked me here. They will be here soon to eliminate all traces of me and my ship.
    “How can they do that?” Cassie wondered. The alien seemed to smile with his eyes.Their Dracon beams will leave nothing behind but a few molecules of this ship, and … this body,he said.I sent a message to my home world. We Andalites fight the Yeerks wherever they go throughout the universe. My people will send help, but it may take a year, even more, and by then the Yeerks will have control of this planet. After that, there is no hope. You must tell people. You
must
warn your people!Another spasm of pain ripped through him, and we all knew he was nearly gone.
    “No one is ever going to believe us,” Marco said hopelessly. He looked at me and shook his head.“No way.”
    He was right. If these Yeerks were to wipe out the Andalite’s ship, how on Earth would we ever convince people? They’d think we were either nuts or