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I wished I could help the man. I had spent enough time close to
Controllers of various types - human, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxon - to guess
that some of what he was saying was in the basic Yeerk language. And
other words were Hork-Bajir. Yeerks seem to adopt some of the language
of their hosts. The Yeerk who was in Edelman's head must have been a
Hork-Bajir-Controller at one point.
Mr. Edelman calmed down and got control of himself again. "Sorry. The
Yeerk breaks through sometimes. What you hear is the raving of a crazy
Yeerk."
"It's okay," I said. "What's this food? The food that allows Yeerks to
survive without the Kandrona?"
"They discovered it quite by accident. No one guessed what it could do.
No one realized it would prove addictive. But it did. Terribly
addictive. And over time, the continued ingestion of it began to
eliminate the Yeerks' need for Kandrona rays. At the same time, it drove
them crazy. You see, it seems to literally replace some of a Yeerk's
brain stem."
I nodded. I could barely contain my excitement.
A food that could destroy Yeerks! "What is the food, Mr. Edelman?"
"Oatmeal," he said. "But only the instant kind. And then, only the maple
and ginger flavor." He shook his head. "Yeerks cannot resist the
addiction, once exposed. And they slowly, but surely, drive themselves
mad. There are dozens of men and women like me. In places like this. On
the streets. Or worse."
"Thanks for telling me," I said. "Urn . . . Listen, is there anything I
can do for you?"
He shook his head a little sadly. "The Yeerks will leave me alone. After
all, who is going to believe a madman? I ... I am sorry I tried to
destroy myself. It all just got to be too much. This . . . this alien
lunatic in my head. My family wanting to keep me locked up in here."
"Isn't there some way to get the Yeerk out of your head?"
"No. No. He will'live as long as I do."
I've never seen sadder eyes. I hope I never see eyes that sad again. I
looked away.
"I just wish . . . the times when I am myself, when I am in control, I
wish I didn't have to spend them in here."
He looked out through the dirty bathroom window with its heavy wire mesh.
We have our ultimate weapon," Marco reported to the others when we were
all safely assembled back in Cassie's barn. "Maple and ginger oatmeal."
"Instant maple and ginger oatmeal," I corrected.
"Instant," Marco agreed.
Cassie, Ax, and Tobias all just stared. Tobias was his hawk self, and he
can really stare. Ax was in his own Andalite body, and he could stare
with four eyes at once.
"Oatmeal," Cassie said.
"Oatmeal," Jake confirmed. "But only the instant maple and ginger. !
guess they don't know why."
"Maybe it's the ginger. Or maybe it's the 'instant.' Whatever that is,"
I said. "Who cares? Suddenly we have a weapon to use on
human-Controllers. A human-Controller who eats this stuff gets hooked
and the Yeerk in his head goes nuts. What we have to do is find some way
to get a lot of this stuff into a lot of Controllers."
I took a sidelong glance at Cassie. Something told me she was not going
to approve of this. But Cassie was bending over a cage, poking her
fingers through the wire to check a bandage on an injured badger.
To my surprise, it was Tobias who said,
doesn't feel totally okay. You know?>
Marco, who had been lounging on a bale of hay, jumped up. "What? What?
We have green kryptonite here! We have something that can make Yeerks go
nuts. Why is that not a good thing?"
Tobias said.
I winced. "It's oatmeal, okay? Not anything illegal."
Tobias argued.
addicted to the illegal stuff and it messes you up, that's a drug to
you. If you get addicted to oatmeal and it messes you up ->
"It's still just oatmeal," I said. "Oatmeal is oatmeal. Jeez! I can't
believe we're having this conversation."
"Look," Marco said, "the bigger question here is WHO CARES?! They're
Yeerks. They're the enemy. They attacked us, not the other way around."
Ax asked.
invulnerable to their normal hunger for Kandrona rays. They can live
inside their human hosts forever, even if the oatmeal is later taken
away. These hosts would lose all hope.>
"If we lose this war we're all going to be without hope," I said. "Ax, I
can't believe you, of all people, would even hesitate."
Ax swiveled his stalk eyes toward me.
longer than you. We understand the temptation to sink to the level of
your enemy.>
"Sink to the level of -" I started to yell.
Ax cut me off.
to be a little ruthless. It's a question of balance. How far into
savagery do you go to defeat the savage?>
I looked around the barn. Marco and I had drawn closer, almost
unconsciously. Tobias was up in the rafters, using his hawk senses to
listen and look for anyone approaching the barn. Ax
was shifting on his four legs and stretching his scorpionlike tail.
Jake and Cassie were the only ones not to say much. Jake looked
troubled. He was staring, but not at anything real. I could guess his
thoughts. His brother, Tom, is a Controller. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]