| #53: The Answer |
Detailed Plot: After having destroyed the Yeerk pool, the Animorphs float above the city in bird morphs watching Yeerk Bug fighters shoot a mysterious circle of devastation around the target. Then a Pool ship shows up--a huge spaceship with auxiliary Bug fighters surrounding it--and descends, presumably to feed Yeerks since the pool is now destroyed. Jake reflects on the war and about how his goal would be to destroy that ship . . . or steal it. After a discussion with his insiders, Jake determines that stealing the ship would be difficult but he wants to go for it. After people keep arguing and distracting him, he calls for specific members of his inner circle and accidentally excludes Cassie. She's offended and hurt, and Marco and Tobias are offended on her behalf because she's one of them, but Jake doesn't have time for worrying about that kind of thing. He asks Tobias to investigate smoke and Marco and Ax to dig up who's in charge of the military right now and where the Chee are. His sources find him a Sam Doubleday commanding the military forces, a new Yeerk pool being built, and no sign of the Chee. Jake decides the Animorphs--all of them--need to go see the general. They penetrate security as dragonflies and Jake lands on the general's table and demorphs. The military guys attack and imprison him as he's trying to explain, and Jake has to repeat the process several times before they agree to hear him out. But the general is unwilling to listen to "a kid who can turn into a bug," and Jake has to point out that Controllers are probably in the room. This turns out to be true as they start threatening the general, and the other Animorphs have to attack to protect him. They subdue the Controllers, but Jake suspects that Visser One somehow got notified that this was the location of the Animorphs. Bombs start to fall. Jake morphs a tiger. Cameras are on in the facility, capturing the activity so they can study who's a Controller later, and Controllers start shooting at them so they have to get the general out. Rachel, as a Hork-Bajir, pretends to be a Controller herself and orders the Controllers to stop shooting, playing the part convincingly. They manage to use this distraction to try to get the general to safety, and a battle ensues and Jake almost gets killed, but he needs his fellow Animorphs to protect him until he demorphs. He barely makes it. Once the battle's over, the general obviously believes Jake. He asks him to take some of his men away and hide for three days so he can be sure none of the men with him are Controllers. In the meantime, they decide they have to destroy the in-progress Yeerk pool because if it gets finished the Pool ship will leave Earth, so the pool has to be destroyed (or delayed) so they will have time to use the general and his men as a diversion. Cassie suggests destroying the Taxxons so they can't dig. The others are impressed that she's willing to be that ruthless, but she obviously doesn't feel very good about the suggestion. The Animorphs go in as bats, go into their battle forms, and attack Taxxons. By the time Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers enter the fight, they've done enough damage for the Taxxons to start attacking each other. The auxiliary Animorphs and Toby's people also enter the fight, and just as Jake is about to give an order to retreat, the ground opens under him and he falls into a chute. Jake gives a thought-speak order to Marco to get everyone and retreat, and then he investigates what's happened. A group of Taxxons approaches him but one of them thought-speaks to him in an Andalite voice. He turns out to be Arbron, the Taxxon nothlit, and he wants to help Jake win the war so that they can get the morphing cube back and change their bodies to something that doesn't have to deal with excruciating hunger which makes them susceptible to evil things like Yeerk rule. Arbron wants to stop being the leader--his version of being free--and wants to more literally free the Taxxons he's been leading. He offers their assistance to Jake's cause if Jake will commit to letting them morph. When Jake flies back to camp, he surprises everyone by being alive. He gets the report: three of Toby's Hork-Bajir have perished, and so has one of the auxiliary Animorphs (a guy named Ray). Jake reveals that the Taxxons want to defect in return for morphing capability, and Ax says the Andalites won't let them. The Yeerks won't let them because they use the Taxxons' hunger against them to control them, but Ax thinks the Andalites won't care because they've already been burned for giving technology to other species. During this discussion it comes out that Ax has been talking to the high command and that they are considering "quarantining" (well, bombing) Earth. Jake's ecstasy over having a new ally is swallowed up in depression when he finds out it's true, though Ax refusing to stop the Animorphs' attack on the Yeerk pool is at least a good sign. Ax suggests that the only way to stop the high command is to steal the Pool ship and use its communications to appeal to the rest of the Andalite population. Jake has to find a good morph to demonstrate for the Taxxons, so Cassie helps him choose the anaconda (and acquire one at the remains of The Gardens). They discuss their future. Jake thinks about what the end of the war means for the human race. Cassie thinks about her future with Jake and going to college. She suggests that Jake won't be able to have a normal life, even though she'd like to marry him someday . . . while she'll be able to become a doctor and go on. They still love each other, but do their future goals match? Cassie proposes that if they win the war, Jake will have to come to her a year after it's over and say he still wants to be with her. She thinks he might not want to. He thinks he will. Jake goes out to meet Arbron in a used car lot, carrying Animorph-fleas and posting Tobias as the lookout. He demonstrates morphing for the Taxxons and shows him his anaconda morph, and they're pretty impressed. They agree to follow Arbron and do what he wants, and then when they are dismissed Arbron reveals that he knows the Animorphs are hiding on Jake, and encourages them to demorph. They do so. But then Arbron calls out another hidden person--and it turns out to be Tom. Tom wants morphing powers for some of his allies and wants to flee the solar system to start his own Yeerk empire away from the Council of Thirteen, because he's sick of the politics. He offers to help Jake take out Visser One and the Pool ship by giving him access codes and information about how to fly the ship. Jake calls his bluff, but Tom insists that Ax won't be able to break the codes on the ship because they change every fifteen minutes. Jake has to think it over. Jake hopes Cassie will help him figure out what to choose. He wants to win and thinks he can do it (based on quite a few ifs), but Cassie and Jake don't like the idea of letting Tom's Yeerk just go about his business on another world, possibly dooming innocent races. Jake wants Cassie to decide and she doesn't want to be the one who chooses something idealistic only to be wrong. Jake feels he's missing something about the situation that's bothering him, and all at once he realizes Tom made himself look like he could be trusted because killing the Animorphs is also part of Tom's Yeerk's plan. He wants them dead because they're also a big reason the Yeerk is frustrated. Jake sees how everything can work out, but with a big sacrifice. All of his friends are going to be in mortal danger, and for once he thinks if his plan actually works, at least one person will die. First Jake sends Marco on a risky mission to find Erek. He manages to do so. Jake blackmails Erek, threatening to kill Chapman unless Erek helps. Since Chee can't cause violence, Erek is forced to cooperate with Jake, and he makes Erek Marco's "property." Erek's not happy about it but he'll cooperate. Jake then tells Ax to lie to his people and say the Yeerks are concentrated on Earth but not to attack because he's going to get them a Yeerk Pool ship to take. And Jake calls in the auxiliary Animorphs and commands James to rally his troops and work with the general and his now known-to-be-uninfested men. They're the distraction. James is getting cold feet on behalf of some of the kids still upset over their lost comrade Ray, but Jake is very harsh about insisting on their cooperation. Marco tells him he's turning into Rachel. And then he notices Rachel's not there. Jake flies on out to the Pool ship, thinking about his meeting with the general, whom he also has to basically bully into performing his role. He meets up with Tom and an unknown human-Controller in the back of a vehicle, flying in as a falcon. In the backseat is Erek with his hologram designed to look like Cassie. Tom's had her bound and she's injured from multiple physical attacks, which of course is an illusion. Tom mocks both of them as Jake puts on a show of flipping out over Cassie being treated roughly, as that wasn't really part of the plan. Then, according to the plan, Jake morphs a fly. The group has to pass a security guard who says there are only two complex life forms and not three (plus some insects), and Tom says Cassie is an Animorph that he is bringing to the visser, so he lets them go through. They go into the Pool ship and Tom lies to the visser about having passed through the Gleet Bio-filter. He describes the plan that the Animorphs allied with the military have with the Taxxons, telling Visser One that he can avoid infiltration of the Pool ship and attack the military while Tom will take over the Blade ship and attack the Taxxon rebellion. They bring on a Taxxon who says he's the one who's sniffed out the Taxxon rebellion, and Visser One is suspicious about everything being too good to be true. So in order to make sure this isn't a calculated ploy, Tom suggests having the Taxxon eat Cassie. This was not part of Jake's plan, but he'd suspected a double-cross. As the Taxxon--actually Tobias in Taxxon morph--chomps on Erek as he makes his hologram look like he's getting eaten, Tom thinks he's getting rid of Jake and anyone else hiding in insect morphs on Cassie's body. Tom gets possession of the Blade ship and clearly thinks he's killed the Animorphs and gotten his goal, and is surely planning to destroy the Pool ship himself to eliminate Visser One. Jake knows if he'd trusted Tom's Yeerk they'd all be dead. He makes sure Tobias is okay in his Taxxon morph, then checks with everyone else; they're all fine, though Rachel is still somewhere else. Visser One orders the Taxxon taken out and killed, but nobody is afraid because the guards are actually Toby and her Hork-Bajir. Jake and Ax think the codes Tom gave them are probably wrong or might even be malicious, so they're going to have to break them the hard way. Marco and Erek and Ax go off to try to break into the controls in the engineering room. Rachel and Jake thought-speak and she congratulates him for a job well-done. Her thought-speak voice is fading with distance as she goes with Tom to the Blade ship. On the Pool ship, Jake watches Visser One observe General Doubleday and his troops on the ground. They are trying to attack where the Pool ship once was but don't know what to do now. He spots Animorphs with them--the auxiliary forces--and Visser One gives orders to shoot them one by one with a close-up view so he can enjoy their deaths. This begins to happen and Jake feels like he's going nuts because there's not a thing he can do to save them, though he keeps hollering at Marco to tell him how much time they have. But finally Erek and Ax break the security codes and they call off the weapons attack on the rest of the troops. They also set a new course for the Pool ship--a low orbit--and Visser One realizes he's been had. The Animorphs must be on board, though he still thinks they sacrificed Cassie. He invites Tom to approach so he can shoot out his engines to disable them, and the soldiers working for Visser One have to go to engineering and kill some Animorphs. Jake, sitting in insect mode on Visser One's head, rides him to the engineering room and warns his friends that they're planning on shooting. They hide, and Jake meets them in a closet. Cassie asks what happened on the ground, and Jake says he doesn't know if Tom went after the Taxxons using the Blade ship. Cassie meant what happened to James, though, and he says he thinks not many of them made it (knowing full well they were all dead) and finally admits that Rachel is not down there with them. That she is with Tom. Tobias and Cassie are aghast, and Marco sees that it was the only solution. Tobias begs Jake to find a way around letting Rachel die, but Jake arranges things so that the mostly disabled Pool ship will attack the Blade ship, stopping Tom from going off to infest another solar system. Jake orders battle morphs so Visser One will know they're there, and they make their way through guards to the pool room itself. They free some hosts in the pool room--and the Hork-Bajir help in the fight--but then Ax reports that the pool can be drained for repair and that he can override the safety protocol that keeps it filled. They could flush Yeerks into space. But the pool turns out to contain over 17,000 Yeerks--both those rescued from Earth and those who were being brought to Earth to be given hosts--and Jake gives the order to kill them all. They are, after all, subhuman. Filthy parasites. That's what he has to keep telling himself to justify the action of killing that many sentient creatures with one blow. Jake and his group run to the control room where Visser One has figured out what's happened. He knows 17,000 Yeerks have been murdered. He knows he was betrayed by Tom. And he knows he can attack with a couple shots, but the power is somewhat drained--turns out that's Erek, trying to prevent violence. The shots don't behave right and they miss, and then Tom hails the visser's ship hoping to gloat. He begins to until he sees Jake there, and is horrified that he is not dead. Tom begins to give orders to shoot at the Pool ship, but then Jake gives the order to Rachel: "Go." Narrator: Jake New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Cassie: None Marco: None Rachel: None Ax: None Tobias: None Notable: Jake gives us his last name in this book, because it doesn't matter if people know who he is now. His last name is Berenson. The Animorphs' ages were unclear, and it's still unclear whether they're all in the same grade in school, but Jake claims he was thirteen when the war started and sixteen at the present of the books. In this book Jake refers to the previous Visser One--Eva's Yeerk--as "he." The Yeerk was usually referred to as "she" in other books, and seemed to self-identify as female too. Rachel, in Hork-Bajir morph, thought-speaks to Controllers to ask them to stop shooting. It seems odd that they don't notice she's thought-speaking, because surely they don't think Visser One is there, and he'd be the only thought-speaking person on their side. In the previous book, Ax communicated with the Andalite high command and Tobias knew that he had been doing so but didn't know what was discussed because it was all done in private thought-speak he couldn't hear. What's curious is that in this book, Cassie reveals that she was a morphed flea on Ax's back during these communications, and some of her lines reveal that she knows the full story--which would not have been something she should have had the ability to overhear. The phrase "In a few moment's time" is used, and the apostrophe is in the wrong place. "A few moments' time" is correct. Jake and Cassie actually talk about getting married in this book. Fleas are said not to have much in the way of ability to hear and interpret sounds. It's curious, then, that fleas hiding on Jake's human body can understand what he's saying when he speaks, though in the next book Rachel's narration suggests that with practice a flea can learn to understand speech by interpreting vibrations felt with the antennae. Best lines: Jake: I still didn't know how to tell adults, my friends' parents no less, to be quiet and let me do my job.
Jake: "Okay. That's enough, folks, thanks for coming." Jake: He stopped being stupid. But not until the fourth time I demorphed in front of him.
Jake: "I'll need your help to provide a diversion." Jake: After you stand up to the likes of Andalites, Visser One, and Crayak, you don't quiver just because some guy has stars on his shoulders. Marco: "Oh, there you are. So I guess I can't have your CD collection after all." Ax: "Will your people choose trust over hatred and revenge?"
Jake: "Where are you guys, anyway? Where on my body did you end up after I demorphed?" Jake: "You don't get a lot of straight-up good or evil choices. You get shades of gray." Erek: "I was offering you my opinion of your morals and your ethics and your sense of decency. I was speaking an ancient Mesopotamian dialect known for its wide variety of curse words."
|