The Alien (Animorphs)

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Animorphs Books
The Alien
Narrator	Ax
Number	#8
Release date	July 1997
Cover art	Ax morphing into a human
Cover quote	He's only human. When he wants to be...
Author	K. A. Applegate
Illustrator	David B. Mattingly
Pages	159
Preceded by	Megamorphs #1: The Andalite's Gift
Followed by	The Secret

The Stranger is the eighth book in the Animorphs series.

[edit] Plot summary

The Animorphs take Ax to see a Star Trek movie, to try and teach him about human culture. At the cinema he eats discarded Raisinets and freaks out because in his natural form he has no sense of taste. Jake and Marco drag him out into the parking lot, where they witness a Controller freaking out as the Yeerk in his head dies of Kandrona starvation (the first visible effects of their destruction of the Kandrona in The Stranger). Other Controllers discreetly kill the human and remove the Yeerk.

Ax morphs into human to spend a day at the Animorphs' school and continue learning about human culture. During first period, Jake's math teacher is also revealed as a Controller when the Yeerk in his head dies. Once again, the human is discreetly killed by other Controllers. Jake accuses Ax of keeping secrets (because Ax apparently knew the Yeerks would eliminate hosts when Yeerks died of Kandrona starvation), which Ax justifies by claiming that Jake would not have destroyed the Kandrona if he knew what would happen.

The next day Marco takes Ax to a bookstore to buy him an almanac, so he can continue learning about human culture. On the way they stop at Marco's house, where Ax tinkers with his father's work and unwittingly pushes human science ahead by three centuries. The Animorphs confront him about this the next day, and Ax lies to say that he has not done anything. In actual fact he has created a Zero-space link, which he could conceivably use to contact his home world.

Ax resolves to erase the damage he has done, but not before he contacts the Andalite home world. He takes Tobias with him and flys to the observatory where Marco's father works. He uses the technology he accidentally created to call the Andalite high command, who tell him to take responsibility for giving human morphing technology, so as not to disgrace Elfangor's name. His father tells him to avenge his brother's death.

The communication is cut by a human-Controller who works at the observatory, and gives Ax a proposition. He says that after the destruction of the Kandrona, less important Yeerks were allowed to die, one of whom was his friend. In order to get revenge on Visser Three, he tells Ax where the Visser feeds.

That night Jake calls a meeting to confront Ax and ask him why he doesn't tell them anything about Andalites. Ax says he cannot, and is expelled from the Animorphs.

The next day Ax goes to the meadow where Visser Three feeds, morphs to rattlesnake and attempts to assassinate him. He successfully bites the Visser, and leaves him paralyzed as he demorphs to finish him off. The rest of the Animorphs show up to finish off the Visser's Hork-Bajir guards, saying that even if Ax won't trust them, they are still his friends.

Unfortunately Visser Three escapes from his Andalite host body into a creek. The host body - Alloran-Semitur-Corass pleads with Ax to kill him, but Ax can't bring himself to do it. The Animorphs escape before reinforcements arrive.

Ax tells the Animorphs why he could not reveal the secrets of the Andalites: because they are ashamed of their great folly, which was to give the Yeerks spaceflight technology and accidentally unleash them on the galaxy. He tells them he will share his secrets from now on, and is accepted back into the Animorphs.

Ax goes back to the observatory to send one last message to the Andalite home world before destroying the technology he made. He passes on a message to Alloran's family, telling them that Alloran still loves them. He also tells high command that he intends to try and fight to save the humans, even if it means breaking Andalite laws.

[edit] New morphs

• Ax: rattlesnake