The Alien

The Alien
Ax morphing into a human
Author	K. A. Applegate
Cover artist	David B. Mattingly
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Animorphs #8
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Scholastic Paperbacks
Publication date	July 1997
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	159
ISBN	0-590-99728-9
OCLC Number	37152835
LC Classification	CPB Box no. 1776 vol. 10
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 the first book narrated by Ax.

Plot

After destroying the Kandrona, the Animorphs assumed that they would see people freeing themselves of the Yeerks. They are disappointed until the day they take Ax to the cinema. A man's Yeerk is seen dying publicly. However, Ax notices that a Controller-policeman kills the free man.

The Animorphs take Ax to the school as Philip, Jake's cousin, and a Yeerk who controlled one of Jake's teachers is seen dying as well. Chapman appears, orders the students to leave, and kills the non-Controller teacher.

Jake and the other Animorphs become very angry with Ax because they feel betrayed. Innocent people are dying as a result of their actions. Ax retorts that they would not have destroyed the Kandrona had they known the consequences, to which Jake replies that he, Ax, still has a lot to learn about humans.

That night, Ax feels lonely, and confused. Running, he ends up in Cassie's house. Cassie notices Ax's sadness, and asks him to have dinner with her family. Shocked at the fact that she noticed it, Ax accepts and enters, morphed as Jake. He has dinner, chats with the family, and watches TV before leaving, enjoying the entire time.

The next day, he meets with Marco to go to a bookshop, as Jake said: "Show him that we trust him, let him learn about us, then, he may trust us." However, Marco forgets the money they collected for him to buy a book at home, so he and Ax go to Marco's house to pick it up.

While Ax waits for Marco in the living room, he plays what he thinks is a game on Marco's father's computer called "Fix the mistakes.". He ends up messing up the computer and leaving Marco's dad very mad.

It turns out that he had developed a new system that was very advanced. Before destroying it, he used it to communicate with his home world with Tobias' help. There, an Andalite made him assume all the responsibility for Elfangor's action and is consequently forgiven. When he was about to speak with his parents, he is interrupted by a Controller whose wife had died when Visser Three chose to sacrifice her after the Kandrona's destruction. To avenge her, he tells Ax where and when Visser Three feeds his Andalite body.

Ax decides to go alone and not tell the others about the information he received. He poisons Visser Three by morphing into a rattlesnake and biting him. As Ax is about to die, the Animorphs arrive to save him, because Tobias had been able to read the note the Controller had written with his hawk eyes.

With his host body having been poisoned, the Yeerk Visser Three leaves it. However Ax is unable to kill a fellow Andalite. So Visser Three's host Alloran-Semitur-Corrass asks him to tell his family that he is still alive and that he has not lost hope.

Ax returns to the observatory, calls his home planet, and delivers Alloran's message. He announces Earth is his new home, and that he will tell the Animorphs everything. He reasons that if the Andalites had done the same with the Hork-Bajir world, they may not have been enslaved.

Ax tells the Animorphs that Seerow was the first Andalite to go to the Yeerk home planet, and that he felt sorry for the Yeerks and gave them the technology they later used to conquer the world. Contrary to what Ax had expected, the others didn't blame the andalites for their problem. They recognized the good action and told him to keep trying, but to be more careful the next time. Finally, Marco thinks that since Ax wants to be more open with his human companions that they should know how Andalites eat. Ax tells the rest of the Animorphs that he eats from his hooves, by absorbing the food. This is a part of the morning ritual tradition.

Morphs

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (August 2008)

• 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 book #4, The Message, by mixing the DNA of the four human Animorphs.
• This is the first time Alloran is featured as free.