I kicked Marco under the table. He shut his mouth.

  "That is a noble purpose," I said politely. Quickly. "I have one more question, Queen Soco. It's about the crew of the Sea Blade ..." Now Marco kicked me under the table.

  I faked a small cough. "Excuse me. I was just wondering what ..."

  "No more questions, I think," Queen Soco said abruptly. She smiled and gestured with a webbed hand. A female Nartec promptly removed Soco's empty cup and plate. "Now I have a question for you, Surface-Dwellers," she said.

  "Where is your ship? I know you did not arrive in the magnificent black vessel. I know the Sea Blade does not belong to you."

  I had no answer. I shot a glance at Ax. His face was unreadable.

  "I see." Queen Soco rose from her chair. The meal was over. "Perhaps you need some time to create a plausible lie. Or to come to your senses."

  Halfway to the door Queen Soco turned to lace us. We were still sitting motionless at the table.

  "I will discover the truth, Surface-Dwellers. Have no doubt of that. But I am also a Page 40

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  magnanimous queen. Feel free to further explore the Nartec world. We will meet again later." And then she grinned. "Perhaps." The door closed behind her.

  I smiled awkwardly at the remaining Nartec, then led the way out of the room. We paused in a small chamber adjoining the main hall.

  "We are so out of here!" Marco grabbed my arm. "There is no reason - NO REASON - for us to hang around. Do you hear me Jake!"

  I shook off Marco's hand. "I hear you. And if you don't lower your voice, the entire Nartec people will hear you, too. Ax? Cassie?"

  "I'm with Marco," Cassie whispered.

  "I'm not happy about bailing without having found the visser," I said grimly. "Or destroying the Sea Blade. Queen Psycho may have delusions, but she could still do a lot of damage with the Sea Blade."

 
  attacks on Earth's coastal cities. However, eventually human defenses would be able to crush it by sheer weight of numbers.>

  "Cool. So we leave it to the navy, and we book out of this nightmare," Marco said. But then I saw his eyes cloud. He looked disturbed.

  "What?" I asked him.

  "I was holding a mug from an old Soviet nuclear sub. They may have more than Dracon beams to play with."

  "You don't think the missiles survived?" Cassie demanded. "Aren't they protected with all kinds of computer codes and so on?"

  Marco nodded. "Yeah. Absolutely. And the Nartec probably can't beat the security measures."

  Probability is not certainty,> Ax said grimly.

  "Great. So Queen Psycho maybe has nukes. Wonderful."

  "And what about Tobias?" Rachel demanded. "We're going to leave without him?" I shook my head. "No."

  "That's your decision? We stay?" Marco asked.

  "I could put it to a vote," I said with a smile for my old friend. Marco shook his head. "I'll follow you, Big Guy."

  "Okay. Look, we have the run of the place. So,

  A) we find Tobias, B) we destroy the Sea Blade. And

  C) - we haul our soggy butts out of here and lorget this lunatic asylum even exists?" Marco inlorrupted.

  "Got that right," I said.

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  CHAPTER 17

  "What's your take, Ax?"

  Ax looked up from the pile of books and ledgers on the scarred wooden table in front of him.

  We'd continued our tour in the palace's library. If you asked me, the most interesting room in the palace.

  I don't think of myself as narrow-minded. But I was still waiting to discover one of the "wonders" of Nartec civilization.

  Human mummies - especially those made from the bodies of prisoners and slaves - are not my idea of high culture.

  Neither are hidden torture chambers or room

  after room of scavenged, mostly decrepit stuff, randomly piled and stacked But the library. A place filled floor to ceiling with shelves. Those shelves |jned with documents made of some vegetable material. Pounded. Woven, maybe, into sheets of "paper."

  Pages bound together by some tough and stringy substance. Marked Wjth what Marco jokingly guessed to be the ink Of giant squid.

  Who knew? Maybe he Was right.

  In addition though to these mostly indecipherable Nartec scrolls were thousands of waterstained human books in every imaginable human language: ships' logs, nove|Si

  |jsts, atlases, maps, and charts. Everything that might have sunk with a ship or been thrown over the side in centuries.

  Naca, our own private watchdog, escorted us to the large room and stood at attention just inside the door.

  We weren't trusted not to attempt to escape. But we had been trusted with the Nartec's plan to conquer Earth with the Sea Blade. And now we were trusted with the Nartec's entjre written history.

  What did information rnatter to prisoners who were going to die before they could tell tales?

  But the flip side of the coin was.-Why waste time? Why not kill us right away? why make nice?

 

  "Like births, deaths, plagues, natural disasters?" Cassie asked.

  Ax confirmed.

  "Devolution?" Rachel glanced over her shoulder and gave Naca a falsely bright smile.

  "What do you mean by that?" she asked tensely, turning back.

 
  36 - The Mutation

  my own documentation . . . >

  "Ax."

  Ax straightened his shoulders in a way that made it clear dealing with lowly humans was a sacrifice for a lofty Andalite.

  Especially an Andalite who'd been referred to as a pet.

 
  They are profoundly inbred. As I believe humans know, insufficient variety in the gene pool can lead to deterioration over time. The Nartec population is dropping. Fertility is dropping. Infant mortality from birth defects is rising. Life spans are shorter.>

  "You mean they're on the brink of extinction?" Cassie whispered.

 
  "Why?" I asked.

  Cassie had the answer. "Fewer ships sinking. They must have been breeding with limited numbers of surface humans, survivors of sinking ships." Ax nodded.

  "So their dreams of conquering Earth are -"

 

  "How horrible," Cassie said. "An entire people - gone."

  "Oh, yeah, I'm weeping over here." Marco

  snorted. "These people are planning to mummify us. After killing us. And if those Hork-Bajir screams are any indication, after torturing us. As far as I'm concerned," Marco added, "the Nartec can just devolve to extinction right now." Cassie coughed and looked embarrassed. "Actually, Marco, they may try to breed with us first. Or at least extract our DNA, if that's possible with their technology."

  "Marco may finally get a girlfriend," Rachel said with a laugh. "Of course she'll have gills . . ."

  I grimaced. "Look, we've got an immediate threat here. The Nartec have captured the Sea Blade. We can't let them take it to the surface."

  "Which means?"

  "Which means," I went on, gently closing one of the old books on the table, "that we have to either destroy the Sea Blade right where it is or steal it from the Nartec. Use it to get out. Then destroy it."

  "How are we going to destroy it at the dock?" Marco hissed. "It's sitting right out in the open. Right in front of a palace filled with armed soldiers." Rachel said, "We slip away from this Naca guy - knock him out first if we have to - morph and ... "

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  36 - The Mutation

  "And what?" Cassie shook her head. "What's a grizzly going to do to a ship the size of the Sea

  Blade? Even if we sink it the Nartec could probably raise it and repair it. These are people who manage to drag entire supertankers across two oceans."

  "Cassie's right," I said. "Our only choice is to steal the visser's ship. Get it away from the Nartec. Destroy it later using the ship's own weapons."

  I nodded.

  "Why do I know this is something I don't want to hear?" Marco said.

 

  I nodded. "Oh, yeah, Ax. It's occurred to me."

  CHAPTER 18

  "This area surrounding the palace is inhabited by those Nartec of better families," Naca said solemnly. "Those of great wealth and prestige." Naca stood erect, carrying what I believed to be a German, World War II vintage submachine gun, and pointed toward the artificially lit "roof" of the Nartec world. Incongruously, there was a sword in the scabbard at his waist. Two other Nartec guards had joined us when we'd left the palace. They flanked our little group. Silent. Keeping a particular watch on Ax. Their odd collection of scavenged weapons at the ready.

  Marco sidled up beside me and drew me back, out of earshot of Naca.

  "We can take these guys, Jake," he said.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "They've got it coming. Is that what's bothering you? If you're worried about hurting some, hey, these people are evil squared. They could go one on one with the Yeerks in the Evilpalooza."

  I shook my head and smiled at Naca. "We've tried dozens of times to take down Visser Three," I said. "Always failed. He's hard to beat. Hard to get to. You think these guys did it? I don't. I think he's here."

  "We don't even know for sure he was on the Sea Blade. He may -"

  "He was on it," I said. "He doesn't delegate glory to his subordinates. If he found the Pemalite ship he'd be the man again. For the Yeerk hierarchy, the Council, all would be forgiven. He's here."

  Marco shrugged. "Okay. He's here. Let's leave him here and get out." Naca was moving us along, and looking suspiciously at me and Marco. "If we can get out of here, so can he, Marco. The Sea Blade is going to be dust, Marco. Vapor. Visser Three isn't going to have it, and neither is Queen Soco." We were walking along again, tourists in the land of the weird. With a blue tuna-man for a guide.

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  "The Nartec who specialize in law, medicine, and other such professions," Naca continued, "dwell in the area just outside the central part of the city. Those Nartec employed in the trades - such as those who make our clothes and sell our food - occupy a more remote neighborhood." With a disdainful flip of his webbed hand, Naca gestured to the distance.

  "Finally, those who scrape together a living in an obscure or illegal manner inhabit dirty, shantylike towns on the outskirts of the Nartec world. There is no point in my taking you to see such places. They are unpleasant and not at all important."

  "Nice to know discrimination is alive and well among the Nartec," Cassie mumbled. "I feel so ... at home."

  I listened vaguely to Naca's tour guide routine. Pretended to be really interested in a small building decorated with a carved and painted wooden prow. The kind shaped like the body of a woman with arms held tightly to her sides and legs that kind of disappeared somewhere.

  And now that I was paying attention, a woman wearing not a lot of clothes, either.

  "Any apartments for rent in this building?" Marco asked. Slowly, steadily, we were moving away from the dock, away from the center of town. Every move seemed natural. Too natural. Too casual. Every move too smooth. Too practiced.

  I had the sudden conviction that Naca had done this before. Many times. I wondered how old he was. How could I tell with one of these creatures?

  Old enough to have been alive in World War II? Had he led the Japanese flyers on this same path?

  If only we had Tobias. I missed my eyes in the sky. My air force. We were approaching a building built out of the center portion of a white-painted ship. Bow and stern were gone. The superstructure was intact. A sort of baroque office building perched at the top of steel cliffs.

  There was a faint outline in red. The outline of a cross.

  "This was a hospital ship," Cassie said.

  "Yes," Naca agreed. He nodded like he was pleased. "I would like to show you our medical facilities."

  We were on a causeway over a canal. The causeway was narrow, built of the gray, steel catwalk of some ship.

  No signal had been given, but I was sure the trailing guards were moving closer. Sure that fingers were closer to triggers. Hands tighter on the hafts of spears.

  "Not necessary," I said tightly. "I'm sure it's a great hospital."

  "But it is a great scientific treasure of our people," Naca insisted. "Queen Soco would be mortally offended if -"

  "I don't like hospitals," I said.

  No illusion: The guards were moving closer. But they could only get two abreast onto Page 45

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  the causeway. Ax had drifted back to bring up the rear. Ax would take down both guards before they thought about squeezing a trigger. I shook my head, feeling fairly secure. "I don't think so, Naca." What happened next happened so fast I had time for only one thought, one last stab of regret.

  Amphibians, Jake. Amphibians.

  With a rush the hidden Nartec shot up out of the water on both sides of the causeway.

  CHAPTER 19

  I woke up, eyes open suddenly.

  I tried to move. Couldn't. I was strapped down on a table. Facedown. Shot a look left, right, Cassie on a table beside me. Stainless steel operating tables. Beyond her I caught a glimpse of Rachel, likewise strapped down. Marco? I couldn't see him, but he could be next to Rachel.

  Ax?

  I twisted my head as far as I could.

  "Do not squirm or resist, it will accomplish nothing," Naca said. "Soon you will be injected with a concentrated liquid from the ablata weed. It will render you peaceful and compliant."

  His bug-eyed face loomed over me. Two new Nartec faces as well.

  "And then what?" I asked.

  "And then we will make an incision from the top of your skull, down to your buttocks, then down along the back of each leg. Your ribs will be removed, then your internal organs, and eventually the rest of your tissue."

  "What are you doing this for?" I demanded, a little frantically.

  "Your organs and tissue will be processed to extract the helical molecule that controls heredity and later employed to augment the development of -"

  "There are easier way to get new DNA, you idiot!" Marco yelled. Naca continued unperturbed. "Then, your skin and bones will be stuffed and preserved to be used in our educational facility."

  "Okay," Rachel said. "Jake? Now can we kick these guys' butts for them?" The answer was yes. But I couldn't say it. Couldn't say it because something had happened to my mouth. My lips were rubber. My face was frozen. My hands were tingling.

  The injection!

  I couldn't move. Couldn't... but it really didn't matter. What was I getting so tense about? No need to get all worked up.

  "Jake ... I ..." Rachel said. Then, slowly, from far away . . . "Never mind." I knew what was happening. I knew we were being drugged. Knew it meant death. Knew Page 46

  36 - The Mutation

  it meant me and my friends being eviscerated, stuffed ... Couldn't manage to hold on to.the outrage.

  Couldn't . . . focus.

  All lost. Didn't matter.

  Faces swimming above me, around me. Huge eyes. Blue skin. Knives in their hands. Cold steel on my neck . . .

  A new face. New Nartec. Carrying a mace, an ancient, medieval club. Like Sir Fishalot.

  Hah-hah-hah . . . what?

  He looked at me.

  Then he slammed the butt of the mace into Naca's ribs. Naca went down, sinking with magical slowness past my face.

  A dreamy, upward swing caught the next Nartec on the chin. The third one turned and ran.

  I heard a door slam. Heard a wheel spin.

  Then the mace-wielding Nartec was back. He was back, but not the same, anymore. His rubbery, blue skin was now covered in a spreading pattern that looked a lot like feathers.

  CHAPTER 20

  It took several minutes for my head to clear. By then Tobias had morphed back to the red tailed hawk.

  There was loud banging on the door of the operating room.

  "Tobias? Nice to see you, man."

  Rachel gave him a hug - or as close as she could come with a bird. Then she yelled at him, "Cut it kind of close, didn't you?"

 
  Like the guards they let you see. My morph was not so good.> I nodded toward the closed and locked steel hatch. "Bad guys out there?"

 

  "Now about Ax?"

 

  He pointed to a second, smaller hatch. Rachel spun the wheel lock and yanked it open. Cold air blew out. It was a refrigerator. An airtight one. Ax stepped out looking about as mad as I've seen him. Page 47

 

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