Free The Encounter by K. A. Applegate Page B
Authors: K. A. Applegate
It made me sick just thinking about it. The rest of your life in the body of a fish? Being trapped in a hawk’s body seemed downright pleasant by comparison.
I said. I caught a small breeze and flapped hard to clear the treetops.
It was tough work gaining enough altitude to get a good view of the area. It was mostly dead air all around. But I was glad for the workout. It took my mind off imagining what life would be like if my only friends in the world were trapped as fish in a mountain lake.
I would have laughed if it weren’t so serious. I mean, come on, how many kids have to worry about all their friends becoming fish? Life had definitely gotten strange since that night when we saw the Andalite landing in the construction site.
I circled higher and higher till I could see the entire lake and most of the surrounding area. No Park Rangers. Yet. I wondered if Jake was right and maybe the Yeerks would move on to another lake. Maybe they already had.
Then, there, way down below, on a branch … the hawk. The female I had freed from captivity.
She was watching me. I could see her eyes follow me across the sky. In part, I knew, she was merely watching me for the simple reason that I was in her territory. Hawks are defensive about their territory. They don’t want strangers coming and grabbing all the best prey.
But I had the feeling that there was something more going on. She wanted me to join her. I don’tknow how I knew that, but I did. She wanted me to fly down to her.
Some people think hawks mate for just a season. Some people think they mate for life, and I don’t really know which is true.
One thing I knew for sure: I wasn’t ready to settle down with anyone. Especially not a hawk.
And yet there was this feeling in me. Like … like I
belonged
with her.
I looked away. I would be glad when this mission was over and I no longer had to come here to her territory. She confused me.
Suddenly, movement!
I had let myself be distracted.
Trucks! Jeeps! They were rolling down the road. They were within a mile and moving fast.
I looked frantically for my friends. There they were! I shrugged off the wind beneath my wings and dropped toward them.
I cried.
They ran for the cave. But it was harder to crawl inside in their human bodies. The wolves’ thick pelts had protected them against the scratches and tears of the bushes.
Thwak thwak thwak thwak thwak!
Helicopters skimming above the trees!
Too fast. My friends were still struggling to makeit to the shelter of the cave. One of the helicopters was on a straight line to them.
I muttered. I still had a lot of my speed from the dive. I flapped hard, powering up to maximum speed. Straight at the helicopter.
Straight at it.
I could see the pilot. A Human-Controller. Beside him sat a Hork-Bajir.
Straight at them!
The chopper was doing ninety. I was doing a little less. The distance between me and the chopper’s windshield shortened very fast. They weren’t going to pull up!
CHAPTER 20
T
hwak thwak thwak thwak thwak!
The sound of the rotors was a roar. They were not going to pull up! We were going to hit.
But then, a flicker of the pilot’s eyes, a twitch of his hand on the control stick. I cranked right. The helicopter cranked left. It blew past me like a tornado. The backwash of the rotors caught me and tumbled me through the air.
I fell, upside down. I folded my wings, flared my tail, and spun around. I opened my wings and swooped neatly between two trees.
I banked left and flew over the cave. Rachel was the last one in. She was still clearly visible. The helicopter would almost certainly have seen her.
I watched till she was safely inside.
They couldn’t answer, of course. They were still fully human, so they could hear my thought-speech, but could not
It was tough work gaining enough altitude to get a good view of the area. It was mostly dead air all around. But I was glad for the workout. It took my mind off imagining what life would be like if my only friends in the world were trapped as fish in a mountain lake.
I would have laughed if it weren’t so serious. I mean, come on, how many kids have to worry about all their friends becoming fish? Life had definitely gotten strange since that night when we saw the Andalite landing in the construction site.
I circled higher and higher till I could see the entire lake and most of the surrounding area. No Park Rangers. Yet. I wondered if Jake was right and maybe the Yeerks would move on to another lake. Maybe they already had.
Then, there, way down below, on a branch … the hawk. The female I had freed from captivity.
She was watching me. I could see her eyes follow me across the sky. In part, I knew, she was merely watching me for the simple reason that I was in her territory. Hawks are defensive about their territory. They don’t want strangers coming and grabbing all the best prey.
But I had the feeling that there was something more going on. She wanted me to join her. I don’tknow how I knew that, but I did. She wanted me to fly down to her.
Some people think hawks mate for just a season. Some people think they mate for life, and I don’t really know which is true.
One thing I knew for sure: I wasn’t ready to settle down with anyone. Especially not a hawk.
And yet there was this feeling in me. Like … like I
belonged
with her.
I looked away. I would be glad when this mission was over and I no longer had to come here to her territory. She confused me.
Suddenly, movement!
I had let myself be distracted.
Trucks! Jeeps! They were rolling down the road. They were within a mile and moving fast.
I looked frantically for my friends. There they were! I shrugged off the wind beneath my wings and dropped toward them.
They ran for the cave. But it was harder to crawl inside in their human bodies. The wolves’ thick pelts had protected them against the scratches and tears of the bushes.
Thwak thwak thwak thwak thwak!
Helicopters skimming above the trees!
Too fast. My friends were still struggling to makeit to the shelter of the cave. One of the helicopters was on a straight line to them.
Straight at it.
I could see the pilot. A Human-Controller. Beside him sat a Hork-Bajir.
Straight at them!
The chopper was doing ninety. I was doing a little less. The distance between me and the chopper’s windshield shortened very fast. They weren’t going to pull up!
CHAPTER 20
T
hwak thwak thwak thwak thwak!
The sound of the rotors was a roar. They were not going to pull up! We were going to hit.
But then, a flicker of the pilot’s eyes, a twitch of his hand on the control stick. I cranked right. The helicopter cranked left. It blew past me like a tornado. The backwash of the rotors caught me and tumbled me through the air.
I fell, upside down. I folded my wings, flared my tail, and spun around. I opened my wings and swooped neatly between two trees.
I banked left and flew over the cave. Rachel was the last one in. She was still clearly visible. The helicopter would almost certainly have seen her.
I watched till she was safely inside.
They couldn’t answer, of course. They were still fully human, so they could hear my thought-speech, but could not
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