Animorphs - The Unknown Part 6

He flapped his wings and took off as Marco, Rachel, and I crawled down under a bush. Unfortunately, it was a th.o.r.n.y bush.

"Oh, this is fun," Marco muttered softly.

'lt's just some horses. It's okay,' Tobias called down from the sky above.

Marco started to crawl out from hiding. I grabbed his arm. "No. Wait," I hissed.

A half dozen horses climbed stiffly down the side of the gully heading for the water. They were led by a gray stallion.

"See? Horses. Now can I get this thorn out of my b.u.t.t?"

I shook my head and put my finger to my lips. I watched the horses climb down. I looked closely for anything that looked strange or unusual. But they sure looked like any old horses.

Four of the horses lowered their big heads and began to drink. A fifth horse stood guard.

The sixth horse was a very nice-looking roan that almost looked as if she'd come from thoroughbred stock. This mare paused beside the horse, standing guard and almost seemed to be whispering in his ear.

Then, suddenly . . .

PLOP! PLOPPLOPPLOP! PLOP!.

The horse began to do what horses do. If you know what I mean.

"That horse is taking a dump," Marco whispered.

"Thanks for pointing that out, Beavis," Rachel said. "We wouldn't have noticed without you."

"Horse patties," Marco said. "Prairie pies. Heh-heh-heh-heh."

"That does it. I'm not sharing a bush with -" Rachel began to say.

"Shh! Look! Look!"

To my amazement, the horse who had been p.o.o.ping stopped. The other horses looked over at her and neighed. I swear they were laughing.

And then the horse in question walked away, moved behind a tree out of sight of the other horses, and finished her business.

"A modest horse?" I asked smugly.

Rachel nodded. "Yeah. It does seem just a little weird."

We waited till the horses had finished drinking and moved on. Tobias flew down and landed beside us. I crawled out through the brambles and brushed myself off.

"I've never seen a horse hide behind a tree to do her business." I looked at Marco and Tobias. "Are you guys satisfied? These are not normal horses."

Chapter 12.

The next day was Sat.u.r.day. We met at my barn.

How do you spy on horse-Controllers? How do you observe the actions of a group of horses with Yeerks in their heads? That was the question.

"We morph horses, of course," I said as I pried open the jaw of the fox who'd been eyeing me hungrily when I was an osprey the day before. I popped a pill in his mouth, held it shut, and blew on his nose to make him swallow.

"Horses? Didn't you morph a horse once?" Jake asked me.

"Yes. I morphed one of our horses. It was amazing. But we have one problem: We only have the one horse here right now. She's got distinctive markings. And we can't exactly go walking around the Dry Lands looking identical."

"Identical horses," Marco mused. "Sweet Valley Horses. Hmmm. That could be a TV show."

We were all there together. All six of us, including Ax. Ax was in his human morph. Once again I was struck by just how weirdly handsome he was. It was strange how you could see little hints of Rachel, Marco, Jake, and me in him. There were some expressions, sometimes when he smiled, for instance, when it was like looking in a mirror and seeing a male me. It was a little creepy.

"Horses. h.o.r.e-h.o.r.e-h.o.r.e-sezuh," Ax said.

Marco spread his hands wide, palm up. "Is that it, Ax? Or was there more to your comments?"

"Horses are quadrupeds," Ax said. "Much more sensible than walking around perched on two rickety legs like humans do. Rickety. Rick-kuh-tee. Is that a funny word?"

"Yeah, 'rickety' is hysterical," Rachel said. "So, where do we find six different horses for us to morph?"

'The Gardens?' Tobias suggested.

I closed the fox's cage and wiped my hands on my jeans. "All they have at The Gardens are exotic horse breeds. We want horses who look like horses."

Mentioning The Gardens reminded me of the sign-up sheet at the base. Should I mention it? No, it probably wasn't important.

"How about one of the farms around here?" Jake suggested.

I shook my head. "Everyone around here knows me. If they walked in on us . . ."

"The racetrack," Rachel said. "They have tons of horses out there. Usually a couple of dozen, at least. I've gone there with my dad. Last weekend, in fact. That's his idea of a cool place to take his daughters on visitation day."

"Did he let you bet?" Marco wondered.

"My dad placed it for me. Two dollars on Chase Me Charly to show. He came in second. I won three dollars."

I stared at my friend. You think you know everything about a person, then, suddenly, you find out something new.

"Humans bet? On horses? To see which is faster?" Ax asked. "What do you bet?"

"Money. What else?" Marco asked.

"Money. Ah, yes. Mon-nee. I always forget about humans and their money."

Jake looked at his watch. He was getting that slightly exasperated look he gets sometimes when no one is sticking to business. "Okay, look, we go to the track. No one bets. We acquire some horse DNA, then we fly out to the Dry Lands and spy on the modest horses."

"Again?" Marco moaned. "That's what we do every Sat.u.r.day. When are we going to get to do something original?"

'Can I ask one question?' Tobias asked. 'Why would the Yeerks be taking over the bodies of horses?'

"Good question," Jake said.

"It has to be about Zone Ninety-one," Marco said. "I mean, what is it, coincidence?"

"It may be about Zone Ninety-one, but not the way you think, Marco," I suggested. "Who knows what the Air Force is really doing out there? Maybe they're testing some new super-weapon the Yeerks are afraid of."

Ax laughed. "A human weapon that would frighten the Yeerks? That isn't possible. Sible. Pah-si-bull."

I felt a little insulted on behalf of the human race. But Ax was probably right. "Look, I just don't see where the Yeerks would care about some kind of alien s.h.i.+p that may be hidden out there. It's nuts. Unless . . . unless maybe they don't know if the stupid conspiracy theory is true or not."

"I have to confess I don't really understand what you are all talking about," Ax said. "However, the Yeerks would know if there was something nonhuman anywhere on this planet's surface. Their sensors could do an a.n.a.lysis of the alloys. After all, the Yeerks are not exactly on the level of Andalites, but they aren't totally primitive. They would be able to detect the presence of alloys, plastic composites, or live metals - the sorts of things s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps are built from."

I know Ax doesn't mean to sound condescending. But sometimes he ends up sounding that way just the same. Of course then he'll kind of spoil the whole Mr. Spock/Commander Data thing by saying something like: "Is wood tasty? Is it good to eat?"

"Yeah, but you want to use plenty of salt," Marco replied.

Jake looked troubled. "You know, it would be really bizarre if the whole conspiracy thing turned out to be true. I mean, what if the government really has been hiding some alien s.p.a.cecraft out at Zone Ninety-one?"

"What is a Zone Ninety-one?" Ax asked.

"For one thing, I'd have to apologize to Marco," Rachel said. "But for another thing, maybe whatever it is they have hidden out there at Zone Ninety-one really could be used to penetrate the secrets of Yeerk technology."

"Well, guess we better find out," Jake said. First stop: the racetrack."

"And what exactly is a racetrack?" Ax asked. "Zactly?"

Chapter 13.

It wasn't far to the racetrack. We decided to fly. We all had seagull morphs except Ax and Tobias. We figured seagulls wouldn't be too obvious flying around the racetrack barns and paddocks. Whereas an entire sky full of birds of prey might be. So we all morphed seagulls, Ax did his harrier, and Tobias stayed Tobias.

Flying as a seagull is the same as flying as an osprey in most ways. But in some ways it can be very different: You have to flap a lot more; you fly closer to the ground; and seagull brains have a different way of looking at the world than bird-of-prey brains. Seagulls are scavengers.

We flapped up and away from the barn, working our sharp-edged, swept-back white-and-gray wings. Ax and Tobias soared far overhead, watching the sky for other predators.

But for the four of us seagulls, the trip was all one long garbage dump.

'Look! A b.u.t.terfinger wrapper! I think there's some left!'

'Look at that Burger King Dumpster! Oh, man, it's loaded with french fries and leftover burger!'

'Oh! Oh! Oh! Cheese puffs!'

'No way! Someone threw out a half-eaten chicken leg! Extra crispy!'

'Wouldn't that almost be cannibalism?'

'Didn't we have this discussion before?'

'Hey, it's extra crispy. I love extra crispy!'

Now, yes, we could have struggled harder to control the seagull's mental obsession for anything even approaching food. But it would have been hard. And to tell the truth, it was kind of fun. Seagulls can spot food you wouldn't even think of. You'd be amazed the stuff people just throw away.

'Look! Out behind that Pappa John's. Pep-peroni!'

Anyway, we eventually made it to the racetrack. Without actually pausing to scarf any garbage.

From the air the track was a big, long, dirt oval outlined with a white rail fence. There was a high, covered grandstand on one side, and various long, narrow horse barns stretching out behind the stands.

The parking lot was about half full with cars and trucks pulling horse trailers. There was a good crowd of people, up in the seats and milling around beside the track itself.

Out in the middle of the oval track was a big electronic tote board. It was already posting the odds for the first race.

'Anyone see a good place to demorph?' Rachel asked.

'There must be some empty stalls in those barns,' Tobias suggested. 'Just fly in and land.'

'Or we could go check out the trash behind the clubhouse,' Marco suggested.

'Seagulls,' Tobias sneered. 'You might as well be pigeons.'

I guess to a hawk, calling someone a pigeon is a pretty bad insult.

We swooped low and fast along the back wall of a barn. The stalls were in two long rows, opening out to the outside on one side, and into a long connecting hallway on the other side. Sure enough, about half the stalls were empty.

I turned a sharp left. Seagulls can turn amazingly fast. And shot . . . ZOOOOM! . . . straight in through an open stall door.

I landed on the dirty hay. 'Looks okay in here,' I called to the others.

ZOOOM!Z000M!Z000M!ZOOOM!ZOOOM!.

The others flew in and landed near me. Then we began to demorph. It was easy. No problem.

Just one slight difficulty we'd overlooked: When you demorph you have to return to your normal body. For Rachel and Jake and Marco and me that meant human.

But for Ax that meant Andalite.