The Alien (Animorphs)

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The Alien
Ax morphing into a human
Author	K. A. Applegate
Cover artist	David B. Mattingly
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Animorphs series
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Scholastic Paperbacks
Publication date	July 1997
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	176 pp
ISBN	0-590-99728-9
Preceded by	The Andalite's Gift
Followed by	The Secret

The Alien is the eighth book in the Animorphs series, written by K. A. Applegate. It is narrated by Ax.

[edit] Plot Summary

The Animorphs take Ax to watch a movie (presumably Star Trek: First Contact) so that he can learn more about human culture while he is trapped on Earth. At the cinema Ax quickly loses interest in the movie, and is overwhelmed by his human sense of taste, which leads him to crawl around the floor of the theater looking for dropped "brown globules" to eat, frightening the other people there until Jake and Marco drag him out of the movie. While the Animorphs are explaining chocolate and Raisinets (the brown globules) to Ax, they witness a Controller seemingly losing his mind, and realize that the Yeerk is dying of Kandrona starvation (the first visible effects of their destruction of the main Kandrona in The Stranger). The human Animorphs believe that the Yeerk's veil of secrecy will finally be lifted, but Ax knows differently; as paramedics arrive, a policeman discreetly kills both Yeerk and host using a Killing Cylinder. The Yeerks leave no evidence behind.

The Animorphs later decide to have Ax spend a day with them at the Animorph's school, using his human morph to pass as Jake's cousin Phillip. During first period, Jake and Ax witness another death by Kandrona starvation as the Math teacher begins to claw at his ear as he regains control from his Yeerk. Assistant Principal Chapman quickly arrives at the scene, and after telling all the children to leave the classroom, uses a killing cylinder to eliminate the evidence. Jake becomes furious when he realizes that the starvation will not be noticed by non-controllers, and accuses Ax of keeping secrets from him by not telling him that the Yeerks would kill their dying own. Ax justifies himself by claiming that Jake would not have destroyed the Kandrona if he knew what would happen to the starving controllers, including Jake's brother, Tom.

The next day, Marco asks Ax to hang out with him, and takes him to a bookstore so he can learn more about human culture and history. On the way there Marco stops at his house to pick up the money they'd put together to buy Ax a book, leaving Ax in human morph, front of Marco's father's computer. Ax believes that the program displayed on the screen is actually a game where the goal is to correct all mistakes found, and begins to tinker, unwittingly advancing human computer science by three centuries. When Marco's father is amazed by the computer program that Ax wrote, Marco becomes furious and confronts Ax along with the rest of the Animorphs, who Ax manages to convince that he has created nothing major by writing the program, which was designed to orient radio telescopes at a new observatory being built. In reality, Ax is beginning to realize that he has created the beginnings of a Zero-space transmitter, that he can use to contact his home world. He does not tell the Animorphs about this.

Ax resolves to erase the damage he has done, illegal by the Andalite law of Seerow's Kindness, but not before he contacts the Andalite home world using the observatory's telescopes. He asks Tobias to accompany him there, where he reconfigured the telescopes to transmit through Z-space, and created a thought-speech call to the Andalite high command. He makes contact with Lirem-Arrepoth-Terrous, Head of the Council, who tells Ax to take responsibility for giving human morphing technology, so as not to disgrace Elfangor's name. Ax's father then comes onto the Z-space link, but just as he is finished telling Ax to avenge his brother Elfangor's death, the communication is cut by a human-Controller who works at the observatory. After holding Ax and Tobias at gunpoint, he kicks his Dracon beam away and reveals that his true intentions are to disclose the location of Visser Three's Andalite feeding ground, so that they may assassinate him. The Yeerk, Eslin 359, wants Visser Three dead because he deemed the Yeerk's loved one expendable, and allowed her to starve of Kandrona rays. Ax does not reveal the location of the feeding ground to the other Animorphs, as he believes he must go alone and sacrifice his life to avenge his brother's death, if need be. Only Tobias is aware of this, but he is bound by his promise to Ax and cannot tell the other Animorphs.

Later that night Jake calls a meeting to confront Ax about the unilateral nature of their relationship. Ax says he cannot tell them anything about his people, and Jake, fed up with Ax's stubbornness, expels him from the Animorphs. Ax grudgingly accepts this, walking away into the woods, determined to meet his fate. The next day Ax performs his vengeance ritual, and then arrives at the meadow where Visser Three feeds, guarded by Hork-Bajir. Ax morphs into a rattlesnake he had acquired some days earlier, and as the Visser runs past, bites him several times before the Yeerk can realize what the snake is. To Ax's surprise, as soon as the Visser calls for help and Ax starts to escape, the other Animorphs arrive, quickly finishing off the Visser's Hork-Bajir guards. But before any of them can stop it, the Yeerk slug leaves his Andalite host body and escapes into a nearby creek. The host body, War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corass, begs Ax to take his life and ends his suffering, but Ax cannot bring himself to do it. Alloran asks Ax to tell his family, back on the home world, that he still loves them. The Animorphs escape before Yeerk reinforcements can arrive.

Afterwards, Tobias reveals that he had broken his promise and had told the other four about Ax's plan, on Jake's orders. They decided to help him, because Ax was still their friend, even though he did not trust them. Ax tells the Animorphs why he could not reveal the secrets of the Andalites: because of the shame associated with their great folly, which was to give the Yeerks spaceflight technology and accidentally create the enemy that had now come to take the Earth. He promises to never keep anything from the Animorphs, and is accepted back into the group. Marco poses the first question, and asks Ax how he eats without a mouth. Ax, amused, explains Andalite grazing to them.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the Animorphs, Ax returns to the observatory, to send one last message to the Andalite home world, and destroy the technology he had given the humans. Ax makes contact with Lirem, and passes on the message to Alloran's family, telling them of the Andalite's love, despite the Yeerk's long dominance over him. Much to the High Command's chagrin, he tells them that he will fight to save the humans, even if it means breaking Andalite law, as the humans are his people now. Lirem tells him that he is just like his brother, which brings much happiness to Ax.

[edit] Morphs

• Ax: Rattlesnake

[edit] Trivia

• The cover quote is, "He's only human. When he wants to be...."
• This is the third book in which the cover art does not depict a morph acquired in the book. Ax acquired his human morph in #4 The Message by mixing the DNA of the four human Animorphs.