Anger was good. Anger was safe. Anger was so much better than the other emotions that threatened to surface and overwhelm me.

  I cried.
  How could you, of all people, have missed it? How could you, of all people, Tobias, not know what that meant?>

  Two hours! Two hours in morph!

  A morph! Aria was a morph!

  I felt sick. I could barely flap my wings. I couldn't think. I couldn't see. Everything was just spinning around me.

  I hadn't realized till that moment how much this hope had meant to me. A home. A family.

 

  I couldn't fly. I landed hard and lay there in the dirt. I just kept saying it, over and over in my head.

  In my life as a human, in my life as a bird, I have never been lower than that. I knew my friends were fighting. I knew they needed me. But I couldn't. . .

  . . . couldn't.

  After a while, a clawed hand snatched me roughly from the ground and I realized I was moving very fast.

  "Come with me, Tobias. The weapon is about to explode."

  It was Toby. In some distant corner of my mind ! wondered how, why she had come. Later I would learn that the battle had gone badly for my

  friends. It was Toby who'd come to the rescue with the other Hork-Bajir.

  She had seen me fall. She saved me. And when we were safe again, she handed me to Rachel.

  How did Toby know to give me to Rachel? I don't know. All I know is I was carried, bundled up in Rachel's arms, till we made it back.

  They took me to the barn. Cassie looked me over, lifting wings and spreading feathers. Looking for an injury.

  "Tobias, where were you hit?" she asked me, puzzled.

  I felt like I had to pull the words out of a deep well, like they each weighed a thousand pounds. I said.

  "Then what's the matter?" Jake asked.

  I said.

  "Your cousin? The woman who wants to take you in?" Jake said.

  I said without any emotion at all. Then I laughed.
  family? She's Visser Three! Hah, hah, hah! Now, that's funny. That is really, really funny.>

  I didn't have much time to sit and feel sorry for myself. That would have to come later. I had an appointment.

  It was my birthday. I was supposed to hear the last statement left to me by my father. Or my real father, whatever that meant.

  All a sham, of course. But I had to go through with it. It was a trap, but the only way out of the trap was to step right in.

  Aria was Visser Three. She/he had been looking for me. Which meant she/he suspected me. If I didn't show up, the Yeerks would assume I had figured out the trap. They'd assume I was an Animorph.

  Why did they suspect me in the first place? Who knew? But it was an easy leap from deciding I, a human boy, was one of the so-called Andalite bandits to guessing that the others were human, too. To guessing that they were kids I had known.

  From then on, it would be a deadly chess game with only one possible end.

  They would get Jake. He had been my friend.

  Jake would be made into a Controller. Even if he died resisting them, they'd move from him to Marco, his best friend, and Rachel, his cousin. From Rachel to Cassie. Game over.

  I had to find a way to walk into that lawyer's office and let Visser Three spring his trap. And not get caught.

  And worst of all, I had to do it alone. He would have his forces clustered all around De-Groot's office. One glimpse of a strange animal and it would be all over. Visser Three would know,

  In fact, my friends would have to be somewhere else. While I went in to face DeGroot and the foul fake of Aria, they would go back and launch an attack on the Yeerks, attempting to clean up the weapons site we'd hit earlier.

  I morphed to human a long way from the office, just to eliminate any chance of being seen. I walked eight blocks to the lawyer's office. Walked. I hadn't walked that far in a very long time.

  It's a lame way to travel. When you fly, you're living in three dimensions. When you crawl the earth like a human, there are just two. It was slow as well. And there were traffic lights and other people and cars and . . . flying was so much better.

  So be happy, I told myself bitterly. It's a good thing you aren't going to be human again. You can still fly.

  No family, but I could fly.

  I was shaking and scared by the time I reached the office. It wasn't so much for me. I guess at some level I didn't care all that much if I lived or died right then. I just worried about blowing it somehow. For the others. For my friends.

  I guess it's true what they always say about combat soldiers. They may start out fighting for their country, but they end up fighting for the guy next to them in the foxhole.

  I didn't so much care about the fate of the human race at that moment. I wasn't human. I was a hawk. But I cared about Jake, and Cassie, and Marco, and Ax-man, and Rachel. Always Rachel.

  The receptionist was gone when I walked, trembling, through the door. I stood there, unsure of what to do. Then the two of them came from the inner office.

  Aria smiled a big smile. "You must be Tobias," she said.

  I remembered seeing her for the first time. Watching her through her window at the hotel, me flying hundreds of feet in the air. Then it struck me. The thing that had bothered me then: Supposedly, she'd been in the African bush for years or whatever. But when she'd left her room, she'd paused to check her hair.

  Perfectly appropriate for a normal woman. Just a bit wrong for a woman who spent her days hiding in blinds and racing around in open-topped Land Rovers.

  I nodded. "Yeah. I'm Tobias."

  My role was tough street kid. It was easy for me to pull off, given that I usually forgot to make facial expressions and had a tendency to stare.

  She came and put her arms around me. She hugged me close. The morph that

  called herself Aria.

  Visser Three.

  I stiffened and tried to pull away.

  "It's okay," she said with perfect sincerity. "Tobias, we're family. I want to take care of you."

  DeGroot came over and shook my hand. He said, "Come on in, young man."

  If you weren't looking for it, you'd never notice it: the way DeGroot stayed back from Aria.

  Like she was someone he didn't want to get too close to. Like she was someone he didn't want to touch.

  Someone he feared.

  So, I thought, DeGroot is in on this. He's a Controller. He knows who Aria is.

  We all took seats in the office. DeGroot, looking to Aria for cues. Aria, playing the role of concerned, decent woman. Me, being the tough street kid.

  One wrong move. One slight wrong move, and Yeerks would pile in on me from directions I hadn't even thought of yet.

  "We are here today to carry out the reading of an important document left for Tobias by his father. By ... by a man different than the man you believed to be your father."

  I shrugged. "Whatever."

  Aria leaned toward me. "Aren't you interested in finding out who your real father is?"

  I laughed. "Did he leave me any money?"

  DeGroot's eyebrows shot up. "No."

  I rolled my eyes. "Figures."

  DeGroot tapped the pages to straighten them. "Then we'll just go straight to reading the document. If that's -"

  Some little bit of Visser Three showed through then. "Read it," he/she snapped. Then, forcing a

  smile, said, "I'm anxious to hear what this is all about."

  So the lawyer began to read.

  I had forgotten how to use facial expressions. I was used to being a hawk and not a human.

  It saved my life.

  ?Dear Tobias," the lawyer read.

  He hesitated, pulled a pair of glasses from his desk, and put them on. Then started again.

  "Dear Tobias. I am your father. You never knew me. And I never knew you. I do not know what your life has been over these many years. I hope that your mother found someone else to love. I know that all memory of me has been erased from her mind. All evidence of my time on Earth has been erased."

  I could feel Aria staring at me. I could feel her predatory alertness. She was watching my eyes. I did not look at her. She was watching for the twitch that did not come, for the grimace, for the worry, for some emotion that would give me away.

  I gave her/him nothing.

  "I am being given this opportunity to communicate with you by the very creature who has erased my life on Earth. He has called me back to my duty, and I cannot fail.

  "This will all seem very strange to you, my unknown, unseen, unmet son. But I am not one of your people. I have taken on the form of a human, but I am not human."

  My lungs wanted to stop breathing. My heart wanted to stop beating. I felt like suddenly everyone, everything was very close in, like Aria/Visser Three was breathing on my cheek, and the lawyer was leaning clear over his desk to whisper his words right in my ear.

  Not human!

  A reaction! I needed a reaction!

  I rolled my eyes and said, "Oh, man," in as sarcastic a tone as I could manage.

  The lawyer glanced at Visser Three, then went on.

  "I was in a terrible war. I did terrible things. I had to, I suppose. But I grew tired of war, so I ran away. I went and hid among the people of Earth. Among humans. While on Earth, and living as a human, I took the name Alan Fangor."

  The lawyer was quoting from memory now, no longer reading. His eyes were

  narrowed to slits as he watched me.

  "I took the name Alan Fangor. But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul."

  Time stopped.

  I felt like I'd grabbed hold of a million-volt power line. Every cell in my body was tingling.

  Elfangor! My father!

  I could not let a flicker of recognition appear. Not a movement. Not a widening of the eyes. Nothing! Nothing!

  The lawyer had stopped. Visser Three glared at me with a woman's eyes.

  I shrugged. "Is that it?"

  I saw Aria's eyes dim. He/she was disappointed. The tension, the electricity, seemed to slowly seep out of the airless cube of an office.

  "There's more," the lawyer said, drawing a delayed breath. "But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul," he repeated, like he couldn't quite believe that name didn't make me jump up and run around the room. "And though you will never know me and we will never meet, I wanted to make sure that you knew my disappearance from your life was not by my choice. I wanted nothing more than to live out my life, loving your mother and loving you as well."

  But we did meet, Elfangor, I thought. We met as you lay dying. Did you know? Did you guess . . . Father? Did you sense, at that last, terrible moment

  when I had to leave you to the murderer who now sits beside me, that I was your son?

  Tears! NO! NO! One tear and I would die.

  DeGroot looked annoyed now. Let down. He mumbled through the last paragraph of the letter like he had somewhere else to be.

  "But I was part of something larger than myself. I had my duty. There was a great evil I had to fight. There were lives I had to try and save. Including yours and your mother's. I am from a race called Andalites. Duty is very important to us. As it is to many, many humans. I cannot say that I love you, my son, because I do not know you. But know that I wanted to love you. Know that, at least.

  "It's signed Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, Prince."

  I barked out a harsh laugh. "Well, that figures, doesn't it?"

  "What figures?" the creature calling itself Aria asked.

  "My so-called 'real father' shows up and he's some lunatic. Some idiot. Perfect. So: No money, right?"

  "No money," DeGroot confirmed.

  I stood up. Aria did, too.

  "You really want to take me in, or were you just hoping I was going to inherit something?" I demanded.

  "I do want to take you in," she said, smiling falsely. "But it may have to wait just a little while. You see, I was suddenly called back to Africa to do some reshooting of ... of some lions."

  I laughed derisively, still the tough street kid. "Great. I have a nut for a father and a fake for a cousin."

  I turned my back on them and walked away.

  "Tobias," Aria said.

  I turned back to face her. "What?"

  "I ... I knew your father. We were, shall we say, on the opposite sides of certain issues. But he was no fool." Suddenly Aria/Visser Three smiled. It was a faraway smile, like she/he was remembering something from long ago. "Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul was no fool. And the galaxy will not soon see his like again."

  I threw up my hands. "Good grief, you're as crazy as he was."

  I walked out and closed the door behind me. I heard DeGroot say,

  "Shouldn't we take him? Just to be safe? Make him one of us?"

  Aria snorted derisively. "He's street trash. A waste of a Yeerk. Elfangor would be ashamed. His son should be a warrior. A worthy adversary, not some young fool. A pity, really."

  I'd been in morph for a long time. I left the office and made it to a safe place without being followed

  or watched. I demorphed. I didn't think about the fact that I'd decided to remain as a human. I demorphed to hawk before I could be trapped.

  But then I morphed again. Back to human. See, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry a lot, for a long time. And hawks don't cry.

  I could see it all, now. DeGroot said he had inherited the letter when his father died and he took over the law practice. The younger DeGroot was a Controller. He must have almost had a heart attack when he went through his father's old files and the name Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul jumped up at him.

  There was not a Yeerk alive who didn't know that name.

  Visser Three had wondered what happened to the son of his archenemy. Did Elfangor's son know the truth? Was Elfangor's son somehow connected with the "Andalite bandits" who caused the Visser such pain?

  Investigation had revealed that I had disappeared from school and from the custody of my indifferent relatives. That must have really piqued Visser Three's interest.

  So he devised a trap. Invent a cousin. Offer me what I obviously did not have: a home. Lower my defenses. Then read me the letter.

  But then came the complication: Visser Three had a crisis to deal with. The young Hork-Bajir named Bek. He would need two traps: one for me, one

  for the free Hork-Bajir.

  Just in case I was connected with the "Andalite bandits," he would play the role to the hilt: In that first visit to check out Bek, he pretended to a humanity he did not have. Later he arranged to make it seem he'd saved some girl's life. What better proof that he was truly a human?

  It would have worked. Except for the fact that Visser Three was called suddenly to the facility where they had just "captured" a group of free Hork-Bajir.

  He'd been passing as Aria at the time. He needed to get to the weapons facility quickly. A helicopter would do the trick, but he would need to travel in human morph.

  I saw him. And that was all that saved my life. And doomed his plan.

  I flew back to my meadow, my mind and heart more full than I would have thought possible.

  Elfangor. My father.

  I had no doubt about who had erased Elfangor's life on Earth. Who had allowed him to leave me that one, short letter.

  Only the Ellimist could have done it.

  I landed back on my favorite branch in my favorite tree. He had left me. My mother never remembered him. He had never existed for her, so she did not feel the pain of it. And I would not have known, but for the letter.

  And now, I guess I could be angry at him. But that wasn't how I felt. Elfangor had run away from his duty when he came to Earth. He'd had no choice but to return to that duty. No choice at all, if he was to play the part he had to play, and be the great prince he was.

  I'd lost a father. Because of that fact, Elfangor had been where he had to be, when he had to be there, to change the lives of five ordinary kids forever. And maybe . . . maybe. . . save the human race.

 

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