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felt. It was his total lack of fear.
    I was an animal that had never, in a thousand generations of grizzly bears, known an instant of real fear.
    Suddenly I felt a terrible pain in my shoulder. One of the Hork-Bajir had slashed me. I glared with nearsighted eyes and saw nothing but a tall blur.
    I had never morphed the bear before. I had never learned to control its brain, its instincts. The bear mind was focused completely on one basic fact — it had been challenged.
    There was exactly one response to being challenged.
    Attack!
    â€œGrrooowwwrrrr!” I roared. I charged the Hork-Bajir.
    He cut me again. It didn’t matter. I barreled into him, eight hundred pounds of very angry grizzly.
    The power!
    I was a truck doing seventy miles an hour!
    I was a tank!
    I was the largest carnivore on land and nothing, NOTHING challenged me and survived!
    I could barely see the Hork-Bajir through the bear’s weak eyes, but I smelled him and felt him, and I swung my massive paw and hit him full in the chest. I struck him with a blow that would have knocked a train off its tracks.
    The Hork-Bajir went flying.
    More came.
    More discovered why part of the Latin name for the grizzly is horribilis .
    I barely remember what happened next. I gave myself up to the bear’s rage. Its anger and my own became one. All the tension within me, all the uncertainty, all the doubts were swept away as I gave myself up to the bear’s violence.
    I remember that at some point, Jake got into his tiger morph and joined the fight. And I have flashing images from my memory of terrible destruction. Of ripping claws and crushing jaws.
    But the next thing I clearly remember is flying up the long dropshaft, while Jake’s voice in my head kept saying,
    I was clawing wildly at the air, trying to kill the tiger that was suspended above me in the dropshaft.
    Trying to kill Jake.
    I felt as if I had snapped awake from a dream.
    Slowly, as we rose toward the surface, I left the bear and returned to myself.

T he soaring rush up the dropshaft seemed to last forever.
    The dropshaft entered solid rock, and as I rose, I shed the last of my bear form. I felt the return of my human reason. But I was still confused and disconnected from what was going on.
    Then, quite suddenly, I was at the top of the dropshaft. I stepped off onto solid concrete. The others were all there. Ax was trying to morph into his human body, but he was having trouble. Morphing is exhausting. Morphing rapidly from one form to the next more than once makes you feel like you want to just crawl in a corner and die.
    I knew how he felt. I stumbled from sheer weariness as I stepped onto the cement floor. It was dark, with just enough faint light to see the faces around me.
    â€œCareful,” Cassie said, taking my arm. “We’re okay. We’re safe. We’re in the base of the water tower behind the school.”
    â€œGotta get out of here. Yeerks will be watching.”
    â€œYeah, they were,” Marco said. He jerked his head over to the corner, where two Human-Controllers lay unconscious.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” Jake said. “You okay, Rachel?”
    â€œYeah. Tired is all. I … I never morphed the bear before. Didn’t have time to get control. Sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay, Rachel. That grizzly got us all out of there. But get some rest, huh?”
    â€œYeah. Rest would be nice.”
    Somehow I made it home. I crawled into my bed and fell instantly asleep.
    I didn’t wake up till the next morning when my alarm went off. I was groggy, barely able to read the numbers on my clock.
    â€œRachel? Are you up?” my mom called through the door.
    â€œYeah. Yeah, I’m up,” I said.
    I crawled out of bed and staggered toward the bathroom. Jordan was in the bathroom we share. I went out into the hall toward my mother’s