Free The Alien by K. A. Applegate Page B
Authors: K. A. Applegate
the offices. If we can find one thatâs empty.>
I said.
We circled swiftly around the inside of the dome. As I flew, I kept expecting to see humans below. But none ever appeared.
Tobias said.
I agreed.
Tobias swept up and out of the dome. I was alone.
I drifted down toward the floor. Down and down, to land on a table. There was a computer console workstation. But no humans in sight.
I saw an open door leading to what seemed to be a dark and empty office. I flapped my wings twice and was inside.
Harrier eyes, like hawk eyes, are adapted for daylight. They are not very good in the dark. But the harrier also has extremely good hearing. I dimly saw a desk and came to rest on it. Then I concentrated on listening.
I was alone in the room. I was certain of that. The only human sounds I heard came through the walls.
Conversation. I could not make out the sounds, but they all seemed to be concentrated in one area.
It was Tobias. His thought-speech was faint.
I answered.
I said.
Tobias said.
I said.
My plan was to morph to my normal Andalite form, then quickly move into my human morph, just in case any humans saw me. But I was tired from the flight. And morphing is very tiring. Especially quick morphing. And if I had to make a quick escape it would mean passing through my Andalite body to move back to harrier.
I would never be able to handle that many changes in a short time. I decided to risk staying in Andalite form.
Besides . . . if it worked and I reached my home, I wanted my parents to know me when they saw me.
I began the demorphing. I could only hope that Tobias would be able to give me enough warning.
Even though I loved being a bird, it was a good feeling when my tail began to form again. An Andalite without a tail is just sad.
And no matter how powerful a hawkâs eyes may be, they can still only look in one direction at a time. As my stalk eyes re-formed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could once again see in all directions.
There was no computer in the office. I was very annoyed by that fact. It meant I would have to go back into the observatory to use the computer there.
My hooves slipped on the polished floor. I swung my eyes in every direction, keeping a sharp lookout.
I pushed the chair away from the computer workstation. I began typing on the antique keyboard. The screen asked me for a password.
I laughed. I disabled the security system and confirmed that Marcoâs fatherâs new software was already in place.
Good. That would make it easier. As quickly as I could, I wrote in a virus that would swiftly transform the software that controlled the radio telescope.
Since humans had no awareness of zero space, they did not understand that a powerful radio receiver could be tuned in such a way as to create a Z-Space vacuum and open a cross-dimensional gateway.
Once I had opened a small hole in Z-Space, it was childâs play to use the same receivers to modulate and reflect the background radiation into a coherent signal. The hard part would be using thought-speech to control the signal. That would take absolute concentration.
We circled swiftly around the inside of the dome. As I flew, I kept expecting to see humans below. But none ever appeared.
Tobias swept up and out of the dome. I was alone.
I drifted down toward the floor. Down and down, to land on a table. There was a computer console workstation. But no humans in sight.
I saw an open door leading to what seemed to be a dark and empty office. I flapped my wings twice and was inside.
Harrier eyes, like hawk eyes, are adapted for daylight. They are not very good in the dark. But the harrier also has extremely good hearing. I dimly saw a desk and came to rest on it. Then I concentrated on listening.
I was alone in the room. I was certain of that. The only human sounds I heard came through the walls.
Conversation. I could not make out the sounds, but they all seemed to be concentrated in one area.
It was Tobias. His thought-speech was faint.
I said.
My plan was to morph to my normal Andalite form, then quickly move into my human morph, just in case any humans saw me. But I was tired from the flight. And morphing is very tiring. Especially quick morphing. And if I had to make a quick escape it would mean passing through my Andalite body to move back to harrier.
I would never be able to handle that many changes in a short time. I decided to risk staying in Andalite form.
Besides . . . if it worked and I reached my home, I wanted my parents to know me when they saw me.
I began the demorphing. I could only hope that Tobias would be able to give me enough warning.
Even though I loved being a bird, it was a good feeling when my tail began to form again. An Andalite without a tail is just sad.
And no matter how powerful a hawkâs eyes may be, they can still only look in one direction at a time. As my stalk eyes re-formed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could once again see in all directions.
There was no computer in the office. I was very annoyed by that fact. It meant I would have to go back into the observatory to use the computer there.
My hooves slipped on the polished floor. I swung my eyes in every direction, keeping a sharp lookout.
I pushed the chair away from the computer workstation. I began typing on the antique keyboard. The screen asked me for a password.
Good. That would make it easier. As quickly as I could, I wrote in a virus that would swiftly transform the software that controlled the radio telescope.
Since humans had no awareness of zero space, they did not understand that a powerful radio receiver could be tuned in such a way as to create a Z-Space vacuum and open a cross-dimensional gateway.
Once I had opened a small hole in Z-Space, it was childâs play to use the same receivers to modulate and reflect the background radiation into a coherent signal. The hard part would be using thought-speech to control the signal. That would take absolute concentration.
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