The Predator Read Online Free Page A

what other people were doing. Like them, he put a sleeve on his cup. Then, still mimicking the others, he attempted to drink.
    “Um, Ax?” I said. “You have to drink where the little hole is in the lid.”
    “A hole! In the lid! No spills! Ills!”
    This was the coolest thing Ax had ever seen. I guess coffee cup technology hasn’t advanced very far on the Andalite home world. Probably because they don’t have mouths, and so drinking is not a big concern. But whatever the reason, Ax wouldn’t shut up about it.
    “So simple! Imple. And yet so effective!”
    “Yeah, it’s a real miracle of human technology,” I said.
    “I have wanted to try other mouth uses. Drinking. Eating.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Eeeeting. Ting.”
    “Just line the little hole up with your mouth,” I said. “Come on, there’s Radio Shack. We’ve already lost, like, ten minutes.”
    The two of us hemmed Ax in and herded him toward Radio Shack.
    Then he drank the coffee.

    “Ahhh! Ohhh! Oh, oh, oh, what? What? What is that?!”
    “What?” I asked, alarmed. I swiveled my head back and forth, looking for some danger.
    “A new sense. It … I cannot explain it. It is … it comes from this mouth.” He pointed at his mouth. “It happened when I drank this liquid. It was pleasant. Very pleasant.”
    It took a few seconds for Jake and me to realize what he was talking about. “Oh. Taste! He’s tasting it,” Jake said. “He doesn’t normally have the sense of taste.”
    “At least he stopped repeating sounds,” I muttered.
    “Taste,” Ax said, contradicting me. “Aste. Tuh-aste.”
    He drank his coffee and we rushed him to Radio Shack.
    “Okay, look, Ax, we have very little time. See if the stuff you need is here.”
    I’ll say this for Ax. He may have been a little weird by human standards, but the boy knows his technology. I mean, he went down the pegboards in the back of the store and just started lifting off different components.
    “This must be a primitive
gairtmof,”
he said, inspecting a small switch. “And this could be asort of
fleer
: very primitive, but it will work.”
    In ten minutes’ time he’d accumulated a dozen components, ranging from coaxial cable to batteries to things I didn’t even recognize.
    “Good,” he said at last. “All I lack is a Z-Space transponder. Transponder. PONder.”
    “A what?”
    “A Z-Space transponder. It translates the signal into zero space.”
    I looked at Jake. “Zero space?”
    Jake looked back at me and shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
    Ax looked doubtful. “Zero space,” he repeated. “Zeeeero. The opposite of true space. Anti-reality.” He looked patiently from one of us to the other. “Zero space, the nondimension where faster-than-light travel is possible. Bull. Possi-bull-uh.”
    “Oh,” I said sarcastically.
“That
zero space. Um, Ax? Sorry to be so primitive and all, but we don’t have faster-than-light travel. And I’ve never heard of zero space.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah.
Oh.”
    “Let’s get this stuff and worry about the other thing later,” Jake said calmly. But I could tell he was getting slightly angry. “I’ll go pay for this stuff.”
    Ax drained the last of his coffee. “Taste,” he said.“I would like more taste.” He cocked his head. “I smell things. I believe … buh-leeve … blee … bleeve … there is a connection between smell and taste.”
    “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “We can’t travel faster than light, but we can make a sticky bun that smells pretty good.”
    “Sticky,” Ax said. “Must I carry this?” he asked, indicating his empty coffee cup.
    “No, you can just throw it away.”
    Bad choice of words. Ax threw the coffee cup. He threw it hard. It hit one of the cashiers in the head.
    “Hey!”
    “Sorry, it was an accident, man,” I yelped, rushing to the cashier. “He’s … he’s sick. He, um, has this condition. You know, like out-of-control spasms.”
    Jake said, “Yeah, it’s not