The Stranger by K. A. Applegate Page B

flying up it.
    A dropshaft! We had used one aboard the Yeerk mother ship. It was a sort of elevator that worked on some invisible force to let you fall safely from one level to another.
    But did it go up , as well as down ? That was the question. Was the Human-Controller in the shaft falling or rising?
    Jake cocked an eyebrow at me. He looked back to the column, making sure I had noticed it.
    I squinted closely at the frozen Controller. She had shoulder-length hair. If she were falling, it should have been swept upward. It was down around her neck.
    â€œMr. Ellimist,” Marco said, “thanks for your offer. But I don’t think so. I don’t think I want to be in your zoo. And I don’t like being muscled like this. I’m glad you like Earth, but we’ll take care of it the best way we can.”
    That made it four against. Me, Marco, Tobias, and Ax. I counted Ax, even if he said it wasn’t up to him.
    Cassie was alone in leaning in favor of the Ellimist’s offer.
    â€œYou all know I take care of lots of sick animals. They are always afraid of me, even though I am trying to help them. Are we being brave saying no? Or are we just being foolish, resisting someone who is trying to save us?”
    What she said made me think. With a shock, I pictured nature films I had seen. I remembered one that showed environmentalists attempting to capture some tigers. They were trying to move the tigers to a game preserve where they would be safe. Tigers are almost extinct, and the humans were trying to save a few.
    But the tigers had resisted. They had growled and fought and avoided the capture nets.
    Was that us? Were we animals on the edge of extinction, resisting the being who’d come to save us?
    I wondered if I should change my vote. Save myself. Save my family. What would they say, if they had a vote? My mom? She would never risk the lives of her children. She would vote yes.
    And my dad? If we were all magically transported to a safe place together, and I had to explain what I had done? That I had voted to save all of us and give up the fight? What would he think of that decision?
    â€œYou know what bothers me?” I heard Jake tell the Ellimist. “You say the human race will lose to the Yeerks. But I don’t believe you can tell the future. See, you don’t know how we’re going to vote. If you did, you wouldn’t bother to be here, would you?” He looked around at each of us.
    Cassie smiled sadly. “If you guys vote to stay, I will, too.”
    Jake reached out and took her hand. “Mr. Ellimist, I guess you have your an —”

—S wer.>
    Instantly, we were back in our roach bodies.
    IF YOU LIVE , I WILL ASK ONCE MORE .
    IF YOU LIVE .
    The red whip of the Taxxon’s tongue held me glued down, helpless! Jake yelled in my head.
    I didn’t need to be told twice.
    Through the fear, I focused my mind on my own human body. Suddenly everything around me went dark.
     I yelled.
     Jake yelled.
    A gush of stinging liquid, like a tidal wave, washed me from the sticky tongue. I tumbled blind and terrified through hot, viscous goo.
    But at the same time I could feel that I was growing. My roach antennae brushed against something very close to me. Another cockroach. But bigger than it should have been.
     Cassie yelled.
     I yelled back.
    Everything was closing in around me. The bodies of the others were shoved against mine as we all grew out of our roach morphs. I felt the gut of the Taxxon spasming as it tried to deal with this deadly growing meal.
    My human lungs were growing back, and as they grew they began to need air.
    I was suffocating! My body was not as durable as the roach form.
     I heard Marco cry.
     Jake said.