"Jaxom," said Amirekh.
Jaxom blinked at the little brown salamander dæmon. "Hmm?"
"Come on," she said. "We're talking about what happened in Escondido last week."
Jaxom looked at me. Guess we'd better be sociable, he said. I got up and moved toward the table where Maxwell and the others were talking.
Amirekh walked with Jaxom along the table. "So," said Jax. "Um, what happened in Escondido last week?"
"You haven't heard?" Jax was busy looking out for me, but he could tell Amirekh must be staring. "What's gotten into you, Jaxom? You're usually all over this kind of story. A middle school in Escondido wouldn't let an autistic student bring an assistive device into his mainstream classes. Said it was 'too distracting' for the other students. You really didn't know?"
I listened in on Maxwell and Giancarlo and the rest. They were wondering about the implications for the kids they knew, cursing the school board, talking about the ways other people viewed their assistive devices. Not long ago, I would have been one of them. I was outraged by the story, of course, but it wasn't the same as before. My friends in the group had no choice – they had to live as blind people in a world that refused to accommodate them. I had the choice to escape that if I needed to.
We already have chosen it, Jax thought. We didn't keep up with the news that affects everyone in this group. It just didn't seem important, did it? What does that say about us, now?
"Sorry," said Jax. "Just... busy, you know. That's awful, though."
"Say, Loren," said Maxwell. Jax dimly saw a flash of movement – Amirekh scuttling back to her usual perch on Maxwell's arm. "What do you think we should do?"
"I think we should organize a protest," I said, easily, just as I would have a few weeks ago. "We should take pictures of ourselves with our assistive devices. 'This is how I live.' Send them to the Escondido school district."
"Sounds great," said Giancarlo. "Can you organize that?"
"I think we should leave that to the younger generation, don't you? I've been doing this kind of thing for years. This is an opportunity for one of them to step up to the plate," I demurred. "Any of the youngsters up for it?" said Giancarlo, while Amirekh gave Jax a funny look.
Most of the kids shuffled in their seats – I could hear the rustling feathers and scraping claws of their dæmons – but Nazneen said, "I mean, I'd like to, but I've never done anything like this before."
"I'm sure Loren can give you advice," said Maxwell.
"You have to target the campaign at the people who matter," I said. "Do your research. Find out who makes the decisions in the school district. It might not be obvious. You could even contact the kid's parents, and find out who's putting up roadblocks. Send the photos to those people."
"Um," said Nazneen. I heard the faintest whisper as she consulted with her monkey dæmon, Bhaanu. "Okay. I'll do it. But I need you all to chip in for film and developing the photos."
"You bet, kid," said Giancarlo. Everyone agreed. Jax suppressed the urge to squirm. At any other time we would have offered to mentor the girl, but between our new family obligations, Animorphs meetings, and just keeping up appearances, we didn't have any time to spare.
Speaking of which, Jax said, check your watch.
I touched my Braille watch. It was almost time to meet Cassie. "Good luck, Nazneen," I said, though I privately hoped against hope that she wouldn't include me in her photo series. "I'm heading out. I'll catch you all next time."
If we can make it, Jax thought.
Jax felt a familiar tickle on his shoulder – a moth dæmon coming to rest there. "You're not staying for book club?" said Sharon quietly. Sharon and I lend each other books a lot.
"Maybe next time," I said, and left before I could hear any more recriminations. Jax felt a little, bereft, though, when Windlow fluttered away. I got to the bus stop just in time and rode it out to the end of its route. I avoided Cassie's house as best I could on the way to her barn; her parents probably wouldn't take well to strangers wandering in, even if I looked like a harmless blind lady.
"End farce," Jax declared as we walked through the barn doors. The Chee's illusion of darkness faded from my eyes, and I could see Cassie cover her mouth her hand as she giggled. A sense of relief loosed me. All my careful maneuvers to get on and off the bus without tripping or dumping into anyone were frustrating inconveniences now, when they were once routine.
Do I seem like a stranger, Jax? I wondered. Do you even know me anymore?
No, said Jax, staring at the wall, a waste of his precious eyesight he could rarely afford when I was blind. But I'm getting to know you again.
Cassie recovered herself. "How are you, Loren?"
I looked at her, at little Quincy on her shoulder, and it struck me how small she was, in a way it never had from the angle of Jax's eyes. She was 5'1, 5'2" maybe. "Coping," I said.
"Good," said Cassie. "Listen, Loren, I... you should know that I'm the one who came up with the idea of putting Aftran in your head. I'm really sorry."
I blinked. Gentle Cassie, who flinched whenever Quincy had to practice hurting other dæmons in defense class, had come up with that idea?
She's a soldier, Loren, said Jax. Don't forget that. Besides, that plan may have saved our life.
"I understand," I said quietly. "Thank you for telling me."
"Aftran is my friend," said Cassie. "Please don't hold this against her. Yeerks aren't all bad. She's the head of a Yeerk Peace Movement."
"There's a Yeerk Peace Movement?" Jax exclaimed.
"I don't think Elfangor ever would have expected such a thing," I said. "What do they do?"
"Convince Yeerks to only take voluntary hosts."
"Voluntary hosts?" I looked around the barn. "I think I need to sit down."
"Pick a hay bale," said Cassie, gesturing around. I sat on one, and Jax took the one beside me. Cassie stood before us. She said, "This is important. Nothing in this war is simple. What the Yeerks do isn't bad by itself. What's bad is doing it without permission. Like we did to you. If it weren't so dangerous, I would be a voluntary host for Aftran."
"Why?" I said, staring. Strange how my surprise reaction now was to stare.
Quincy rearranged his wings nervously. Cassie said, "Listen, I have no right to say this, but... sharing your head with Tobias wasn't all bad, was it?"
And yes, Jax's ears flattened to his skull with anger, but I thought about how Tobias had uncovered all the memories I couldn't access before, how he now knew so many important and difficult things about me that I didn't have to go through the painful process of explaining. "Yeah. We, well, we understood each other. Maybe more than we needed to. But yeah."
"Hosts give Yeerks a lot," Cassie said, "but a good Yeerk can offer a lot in return."
"It's not something I'd ever choose, but I'm glad there's some way for humans and Yeerks to live as brothers. And now I have to ask – if Yeerks can be good, then why do you kill them? Why don't you just help the peace movement? Doesn't this prove there's another way?"
"I'm sorry, Loren, but most Yeerks believe in the Empire. If burglars break into your house, you don't treat them gently, even though they have the potential to be something better. If you do that, they'll still hurt the people you love. You fight back. If one of them lays down his weapon when you ask him to, you show mercy. But still, you fight back."
I stroked my thumb along the base of Jax's neck. "Are you a Christian, Cassie?"
Cassie's eyes narrowed a tiny fraction. Her mouth pressed closed, while Quincy's opened a little. So many details. I struggled to put them together. I had known all of this, once. I remembered it, like an entry in a dictionary, but I couldn't feel it. Guarded, said Jax. That's what that expression is.
"No," said Cassie. "My grandparents are, but not me."
"Never mind, then."
"Why don't I show you the bird I have for you?" said Cassie, her face more open now, though Quincy still watched me oddly. She went among the rows of cages, and Quincy flew a little circle around Jax, gesturing him to follow.
I stood next to Cassie in front of a cage with a heavily sedated bird of prey. Its colors arrested me, even though they were plain as anything, sandy-beige and deep tan, because the first was patterned with mesmerizing waves of the second. "It's beautiful," I said.
"She's a prairie falcon," said Cassie. "A motorist found her out in the Dry Lands. She's sick. Intestinal parasites."
"She won't bite, then?"
"Oh no. She's way out of it. But maybe touch her at the end of her tail, just to be safe."
I reached through the bars with my finger and touched the smoothness of her tailfeathers. She barely stirred. I took in the dusty shades of her feathers, the hook of her beak, and imagined what I would be like to fly with Tobias on her wings, to see the world through those keen eyes he so often spoke of.
"Want to give it a try?" said Cassie.
I wished Tobias and Ax were here instead. But then, I didn't want to hear Tobias talk about how amazing raptor eyes were. Besides, I knew Cassie, and she was kind.
I stripped down to my morphing leotard and focused on the prairie falcon. I even spread out my arms and imagined the wind catching them. Jax laughed, but it worked: my lips became hard, like fingernails, and pushed outward from my face. Scales ran up my legs, and my toenails curved into black points. I shrank to Cassie's height, so we were briefly eye to eye, then shrank some more. Jax winked out of view, and I was down to my own eyes, which were getting impossibly sharper. I could see every crack and stain in the wood of the barn's rafters. I could read the charts attached to cages across the barn. It was too much information coming from a sense that had once given me so little. I lost my focus, and the morph stopped. I still had human ears and my feathers hadn't come in. I must have looked like a plucked chicken.
"Come on, Jaxom," said Quincy. "It's like Asair says in defense class. Keep what's important, shed the rest."
Right, thought Jax. We don't need to get caught up in the vision. The falcon mind will know how to handle it. He imagined the clean precision of the falcon's mind, the urge to fly and hunt. My skin itched and broke out with feathers. My human ears disappeared, and hearing flooded in too, threatening to drown me with the scrabble of mice and the murmuring of caged birds. Keep what's important, Jax thought, and the falcon was with us, and she wanted out.
There was an exit opening up, out of this too-small place. I hopped out into the open air, wings spread to catch the wind. It flowed under my wings, and I was up, up, free and safe. Tiny, now, the wooden prison that had held me. Tiny, the meadow, and to one side of it stretched wild lands, full of places to nest and mice to eat, and to the other side a sprawl of boxes and gray rivers and fenced-in greenery that –
Is our home, Jax thought.
I came back to myself, and was stunned.
This was my city, Santa Barbara, as I had never known it in a lifetime of living here. I had learned my little sphere of it, as a kid. Elfangor and I left it for a little while when we went to college at UCLA, but we came back to Santa Barbara to start our lives together, and I saw more of the city than I ever had before. Then the accident – no, the Ellimist – happened, and I learned my city again from scratch, a series of soundscapes and smells and blurry monochrome impressions. And now I saw it from yet another angle, and it looked...
Small, Jax said. If it can look so small and easy to cross for a bird, then what does it look like from a spaceship?
We could go anywhere, I thought. If this all gets to be too much, we could escape. Just fly and fly and leave all this behind.
And leave Tobias and Ax behind?
I circled back down toward Cassie's barn. You're right. Of course we wouldn't. But it's nice to have that fantasy, isn't it? That idea of freedom? No wonder Tobias is so attached to being a hawk, with the life he's had...
Speaking of Tobias... said Jax, and I realized there was a red-tail also heading for the barn. I reached toward the hawk with my thoughts. «Tobias?»
«No,» replied a gravelly voice. «Toby. You must be his mother.»
«Toby,» I said. «Tobias told me about you.» I watched her enter the barn, then followed.
«Looks like I'm here early,» Toby said, settling in the rafters. I landed on a hay bale.
"I'm sure the others will be here any minute," Cassie said. "Listen, Loren, I hear my dad's car pulling into the driveway. Could you demorph in one of the empty horse stalls?"
«Sure,» I said, «but, um. I've done the morphing thing twice, and both times I came back naked. How do I get my leotard back?»
"When you make that mental image while you're demorphing, make sure you include the leotard. Not just how it looks, but how it feels."
«I don't make a mental image,» I muttered. I felt a little sensitive about it. I'd practiced morphing Champ at home with a leotard without Chee enhancements, and I only got it back when I demorphed two times out of three.
"Oh. Right. Duh. Well, then, make sure to include what it looks like."
I hopped in that funny bird-walk under the door to a horse stall. I knew very well what the leotard felt like, because I now wore it under my clothes every day. I saw what it looked like when I dressed and undressed. I could do this.
This is how you look to me, said Jax, providing his blurry image. It wasn't terribly different from how I looked to him naked.
No. That won't help. I should picture it the way I see myself. Anyway, I always turn off the hologram when I'm in the bedroom with curtains drawn, don't I? Because I can't live this farce every minute of every day. So I pictured what I saw when I looked down at myself, by the glow of the lamp in the evening after I took my outer clothes off. The slight chafe marks around the shoulder straps. My breasts, their curve restrained by the elastic of the leotard. Even as I pictured it, I felt my talons soften into toes.
When it was done, I was standing in the smelly stall, and I had my leotard on. I stepped back out and pulled on my pants. "Thanks, Cassie," I said.
Jake and Marco came in as I was pulling my shirt over my head. They bickered, their dæmons wrestling playfully on the barn floor, and I wondered how I'd missed that they were best friends. Probably because they scare you the most of all of them, Jax said.
The boys sat down. I took a long look at them, seeing them in full detail for the first time. Jake was tall and thickly built. His face was plain, broad with a long nose, square chin, and brown eyes. His brown hair was mostly short, with some bangs falling across his forehead. His dæmon – Merlyse, Jax reminded me – changed from a goat to a wild horse, while her friend Diamanta perched on her neck as a black and white falcon with a bright red face. They joked easily with Marco and Diamanta, though there was something assured in the way they carried themselves that I wasn't used to observing in children.
There was a kind of restless energy in Marco, a contrast to Jake's steadiness. Diamanta plucked at Merlyse's mane, making her huff and toss her head. Marco's leg jogged in a rapid, unconscious rhythm as he spoke to Jake, his dark delicate eyebrows and mouth shifting with every turn of speech. There was a book I wouldn't be able to read with these eyes for a long time.
Merlyse and Diamanta noticed me staring and looked back. They haven't seen your new face, Jax realized. Cassie had hidden her reaction so well the thought hadn't occurred to me. Jax thought, Bless her for that small mercy.
"How's it going?" Merlyse asked Jaxom.
"All right," he said, and I felt my face closing off in the same way Cassie's had when I'd asked about her religion. Guarded. Jake and Marco were dangerous people. Well, all of them were, but their dangers were less known to me, and therefore more frightening.
"She just tried out her raptor morph," said Cassie. "Prairie falcon. I guess it went well, huh, Loren?"
"Yeah," I said, and I couldn't help but smile. "It was pretty cool."
Tobias flew in, then. «You tried your wings for the first time without me?»
I looked up at the rafters and laughed. "There'll be plenty of time to give me flying lessons, Tobias."
«You'd better be a good student. We've all been flying for ages. You have some catching up to do.»
«No need to worry. You're a very good flying teacher,» said Toby.
«Oh, hey, Toby! Look at you, flying down from the valley all by yourself!»
Ax came in, closely followed by Rachel. Seeing him in the same space as Cassie, Jake, Marco, and Rachel made it clear where he'd gotten his looks from. He was a blend of all their features in the most appealing combinations: Cassie's black curls loosened and lightened by Rachel's straight blonde hair, Marco's expressive feminine face with the lushness of Cassie's lips, Jake's long strong legs, and deep warm ochre skin in between all their shades of pink and brown. I could also see the resemblance between Rachel and Jake: not just their height, but also their long narrow noses, their square chins, and their small ears.
«You already showed me the way,» Toby said. «It wasn't so hard to do it again.»
"Nonetheless," said Ax, "congratulations, Toby. Cun. Gratch. Ullations. Cun-gratch-you-lations?"
«Either way is fine, Ax,» said Tobias.
"So, I guess Tobias already told you about Loren?" Rachel said.
«Yes. The seventh Animorph. Welcome, Loren.»
"Thank you, Toby," I said.
"So, you called the meeting, Toby," said Jake. "What's up?"
«I've been flying recon in the area around the valley to find out if the Yeerks have any operations going nearby. Well, they've got something out in the Dry Lands. They must have people in the military, because it looks like they're using one of their old training camps. I asked Tobias and Ax to look some stuff up on the Internet, and I think they're posing as – what do you call, private security contractors. The military lets them use their training facilities sometimes.
«I found some cover and went fly. I figured out they're using the facility to train human soldiers, but mostly to train my people. Hork-Bajir. I wanted to lead a raid to free them, but unfortunately I've had to face the fact there are too many for us to capture them all. There are hundreds. Too many for any brute force solution.»
"Any ideas for what we should do?" said Jake, and I found myself a little impressed by that reaction. Jake didn't automatically make decisions on her behalf. He'd asked for her opinion. My case really had been the exception.
«Their capabilities must be weakened before my people can strike. Perhaps you can lure away most of the soldiers somehow.»
"You're right," said Marco. "This is too big an opportunity to waste. We can't shut down the facility, but we can do long-term damage if we can kidnap enough of them."
"We can disrupt their weapon supply, maybe," said Rachel. "No Dracon beams, no learning how to fire them."
"If I can acquire some Dracon – drak-uhn – beams, I can make good use of them," Ax offered.
"We could infiltrate the troops, maybe," Jake murmured. "If we could capture some Hork-Bajir-Controllers quietly, acquire them, and replace them..."
"Then we can lure away more Controllers for Toby's people to catch," said Cassie. "But we can't just go ahead acquiring Hork-Bajir left and right without their permission."
«Yes you can,» said Toby. «If we don't capture them now, then you'll have to kill them later. You don't ask permission before you kill my people in battle, do you?»
Cassie flinched.
«The troops use latrines out in the brush,» Toby continued. «That's the best way to get them alone, I think. I don't know about the weapons supply – you'll have to help me scope it out.»
"What's a latrine?" said Rachel.
"An outdoor bathroom," Jake said. "Usually just a trench dug in the ground."
"Ew," said Rachel. "We're kidnapping Hork-Bajir while they're using the toilet?"
«My people will be doing the kidnapping,» said Toby. «Besides, we're herbivores. I'm sure human latrines are much worse.»
"I'm pretty sure that if there's one thing that all aliens from all planets have in common, it's that their shit stinks," said Marco. "So, weapons supply. We'll need to set up a watch on the facility so we can figure out how to hit them."
"Twenty-four hours," Jake said. "They might bring in shipments at two in the morning for all we know."
Everyone groaned. I looked around and saw faint bruising under Jake's and Rachel's eyes, whose skin was pale enough to show it.
"I'll take watch tonight," I offered. "Toby can show me the way."
"We don't have anywhere to be until tomorrow afternoon," Jax added, "so we can catch up on our sleep in the morning."
«I'll take the watch after Loren, and Tobias and Ax can take over for me until the rest of you get out of school,» said Toby.
"Are you sure you want to do this on your own?" Cassie asked me.
I shrugged. "It seems like a good way to start. I'd rather have my first mission just be sitting out all night looking for a supply truck than throwing myself into something really high-stakes."
Not to mention I'm scared to fight, Jax thought. I'm not sure if I can.
Everyone except Toby looked away from me, then, clenching their fists and stiffening their tails. I wondered what they were reacting to.
"You're right, yeah," Jake said stiffly. "That probably is the best way to start. Keep an eye out, and if you see a supply truck, come let me know after your watch. Perch outside my window and thought-speak, and I'll find a way to let you know I heard. Don't forget to demorph every two hours. We can give you a digital watch to wear when you're in morph."
I nodded. It wasn't as if I could forget, but I wouldn't say that in front of Tobias.
"Thanks, Toby," said Jake. "We'll meet again when we've worked out the Yeerks' logistics. We'll probably meet you up in the valley. I'm gonna stay here and study for the history test, if anyone else is up for it."
Everyone except Toby and me seemed interested in staying. I turned to leave when Cassie said, "Wait, Loren, Toby. If you're going to stand watch tonight, I need to give Loren a wristwatch, and both of you an owl morph."
"Oh!" I said, feeling heat rush to my cheeks. Jax's vision was about the same by night or day, but of course that wasn't usually true.
«Oh, yes. Tobias has mentioned that he can't see as well by night,» Toby said.
"Well, you're in luck. We have a long-eared owl who got grazed by a car while eating roadkill out on the interstate. Hey, Tobias, can you go out and check to see if my parents are back? If they see you demorphed it'll be kind of hard to explain."
«Long-eared owls,» Tobias muttered darkly. «Not much better than great horned owls, if you ask me.»
Toby glided down to a hay bale and began to demorph, doubling her size in moments. Cassie pointed out the cage with the long-eared owl. It was tawny, marbled with white and dark brown, its reddish face dominated by huge yellow eyes. It had two long tufts sticking from the top of its head like rabbit ears. I stuck my fingers through the bars and stroked one of the tufts. I imagined flying through the night on the owl's wings, when most people could not see, and stayed indoors.
I noticed Cassie opening the cage door as I acquired the owl's DNA, and in a moment I saw why: Toby's finger was too big to fit between the cage bars. I followed the clawed finger up to the scaly hand, the bladed wrist, and then it hit me, really hit me, that Tobias' friend Toby was an alien.
Jax let out a tiny giggle as Toby touched her finger to the owl's beak. Of course she's an alien. We married an alien. Our brother-in-law is an alien.
Not to us, I thought. To us, they're just family. Now Toby... she's an alien.
Well then, Jax thought, to Tobias, she's not an alien either.
"Long-eared owls sometimes start hunting in the evening," said Cassie, "so if you're heading out, you might as well try the morph now."
I looked around the barn. Jake, Marco, and Rachel had their books out. Tobias was perched so he could see over Rachel's shoulder at the textbook she was flipping through. Abineng held the spine of the textbook upright with his nose. "Has anyone figured out how to graph a tangent curve?" Rachel said.
«Yes,» said Ax, «before my tail blade was fully grown.»
"Then come over and help me, Mr. Alien Genius," Rachel said.
Are you sure you shouldn't stay a little longer? Jax suggested. This looks like team bonding time.
More like teen bonding time, I thought. Let them be, without a fogey grown-up breathing down their necks. It's not like I even remember what a tangent curve is anyway, even with all those memories restored.
"All right, Toby," I said. "Let's have an evening, uh, stroll."
You're ready, right? I thought, as I focused and saw golden brown feathers spring free of my skin. To disappear?
Never, said Jax. But he added his own focus to the morph, and the barn grew vast around me.
The owl's vision was just as different from the prairie falcon's as it was from mine. It was completely black and white, though alive with detail, and most of all movement. A little wind from outside came under the barn doors and through the gaps around it, and I saw the straw on the floor stir in that tiny breath of air. Every flutter of Quincy's eyelids as he blinked was as hard to miss as a tsunami. I reeled.
Keep going, Jax thought. The owl's mind will be able to handle it. Just keep going.
I focused, calming myself into the owl's being. Then, I wasn't calm.
There were predators and prey everywhere, all in too tight a space. And another male, right beside me! I fluffed my feathers out, hopped away from him, and spread my wings. We could fight over territory later. Not here. I took off toward the square of golden light that beckoned freedom.
The other male followed me. Did he want a fight?
«Loren! Loren, are you in there? Jaxom? It's me, Toby.»
«Oh!» said Jax. «Sorry, Toby. Got a bit lost there.»
«You need to go back,» Toby said. «You need a watch so you know when to demorph.»
«Right,» I said, feeling chagrined. I flew back into the barn, over the owl's protests.
Cassie held up a digital watch. "Forgot something?"
«Sorry.»
"It's fine. Perch on my other arm."
I was worried she wouldn't be able to hold the owl's weight, but Cassie was stronger than she looked. She deftly fastened the watch around my "wrist" with one hand, and I was set.
"Good luck!" she said, waving as I took off, fully in control of myself now.
Toby was outside, flying slowly so we could catch up. «I'll pass over the valley on the way, even though we don't need to,» she said. «You probably won't remember it after one time, but you'll get the hang of it eventually.»
«Okay,» I said, falling into pace a long enough distance behind Toby that the owl's mind wasn't nervous. The world had become both huge and tiny beneath me. It struck me how big the Earth was, how big the galaxy was that held so many living things in it, and how small we were on so grand a scale. It terrified me.
«So,» said Toby. «You're Tobias' mother. Tell me: where does Tobias' name come from?»
I understood. The name was hers as well, and she wanted to know its history. «My father served in the Vietnam War,» I said. «Do you know what that is?»
«Yes. Tobias told me about it.»
«He came back... not quite right, as soldiers often do. There was a social worker in charge of his case. He didn't fix my father, not by a long shot. I don't think care for people with mental problems was as developed back then. But he did family therapy with us. He helped us keep it together enough that our family didn't completely fall apart. His name was Tobias.»
«That's good. I like that,» Toby said. «You know... I think Tobias and his friends aren't, um, quite right either. I'm not saying it's the same as what your father went through, but I've read books about war, and I think it's getting to them. But they can't see it, because they're right in the middle of it.»
«Hmm.» I wasn't sure what else to say.
«Thanks for telling me,» Jax said.
The national park opened up the flanks of low mountains. As the sun set, orange light reflected off stones and leaves. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen – not that I'd seen my fair share.
«Here it is,» said Toby.
«Huh?» I said. I didn't notice any valley, and with the keenness of my owl eyes, surely I would have spotted it.
«Between those two peaks, to the northeast,» said Toby.
I still couldn't see. Not in the way I couldn't see when I was blind, but because there was too much to see, and I didn't know what was important. This had happened to me more than once since I regained my vision, but how could I miss an entire valley? «There are peaks everywhere,» I said, frustrated. «Which peaks?»
«It's all right,» Toby said. «The others had trouble too, at first. Just follow me, OK? We'll pass right over it.»
I followed as closely behind Toby as I could without being obvious. I didn't know what I was looking at until, as Toby said, it was right beneath me. There were aliens swinging through the trees.
«You live in trees,» I said, amazed. I saw a Hork-Bajir make a long jump to an oak, embedding its blades into the bark to keep from sliding down. «That's what the blades are about.»
«I'm pretty sure you're the first person I know to figure that out without anyone telling you so,» Toby said sardonically. «It's definitely not what the Yeerks thought of when they first found us.»
«Mother of God,» I said. «The Yeerks made you into warriors.»
«Yes.»
It makes me sick, Jax thought. Blades made for the trees, turned to such a foul purpose.
That's what we're doing with the morphing technology too, I thought. Didn't Elfangor say once that Escafil invented it to cure vecols? People like us?
«I'm sorry,» I said. «Peace and mercy on you all.»
«That's kind of you,» Toby said. «All right, their facility in the Dry Lands is right over these mountains.»
The mountains opened out into dry scrublands. There were still a few foothills scattered here and there, and the facility was nestled in the lengthening shadow of one of them.
«Doesn't seem unusual,» I said.
«You can catch them when they go out for the latrine, or for some kind of weapons practice. Keep watching.»
We settled on top of dry, dead trees to keep a lookout. After a little while, a group of Hork-Bajir emerged from the building. They set up targets on the slope of the foothill, then fired up at them with weapons that fired pulses of red light. They looked familiar – yes, Dracon beams. I remembered with a dull horror what they could do. TSEEEWWW! TSEEEWWW! The pulses that missed set little fires in the scrub, and the Controllers that had to put them out swore in a mix of foul language both familiar and alien.
«How come no one catches them at it?» I wondered.
«They only come out at night. There are plenty of military installations in the Dry Lands. All anyone ever sees are the flashes of red light and the fires.»
Right. It's night. Of course, said Jax. We hadn't noticed, somehow.
«I think I've got it, Toby, thanks,» I said. «You can go home now. I'll see you in the morning.»
«Goodnight, Loren.»
Jax and I were left to our thoughts – and oh, we had so many!
Toby's right, Jax thought. I think it is getting to them. We've spoken to people through the church crisis hotline who've been through less than they have. But what can we do? We can't be their collective therapist. Soon enough we might be the ones needing therapy.
Who can they trust? I thought. Who can they talk to who's safe? Who can we talk to who's safe? I have so many questions, Jax. I looked at those Hork-Bajir and thought... I thought...
I will admit that in that moment, I had a crisis of faith. I thought about Earth and how tiny it was, and about the universe and all the different, wondrous, blessed races that lived in it, and I wondered if it was pure vanity to believe in a Redeemer who was human, and died for humanity's sins, when there was something worthy of redemption in every thinking being I had encountered.
I thought back to my days before the accident, when I had been at peace with the existence of life throughout the universe, but they were no comfort to me: I had only been a little religious, then.
If our God is the God of humanity alone, then He is not a God I want to worship, I thought. And if He is the God of everyone, then why does the Bible only speak of the creation of the Earth and the story of man? Why was the Son of God sent into the world as a man?
Maybe God sent His Word to other worlds in other ways, Jax said. He is infinite, and our minds are limited, the mind of each race in its own way.
Perhaps. But then what of Christ? Did he die only for the sins of man? Or for Andalites too? And what about the Yeerks? If he died for the sins of everyone, then we now go to war against our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Jax thought of the Hork-Bajir, perverted against their purpose to be weapons for the Yeerks. Had Elfangor done the same to Tobias, Ax, and their friends? To us? Surely this is not what God intended for His creation, to discover new and beautiful life only to go to war and destroy it.
I thought, If only we could ask Father Dupree...
The thought of our kind old priest being a Controller made me sick, but of course he would be a prime target, holding the trust of so many. There must be someone who is safe.
Jax remembered the Kings' house, and the leotard. The Animorphs seem to trust them. They've helped.
White-hot rage flared behind my eyes. Helped! Some help they've been! They could have come forward as confidantes and therapists on their own! They could help the Animorphs with their homework so maybe they wouldn't look so tired all the time! They say they won't fight, but they are no true pacifists. They're cowards who sit back and watch children bleed their lives away as they fight their war for them. It may be my duty as a Christian to step back, not to kill, but I will still help in every way that is in my power. Truly, not in half-measures as the Chee have done.
Jax thought of the parable of the talents, then. A master gave his three servants a measure of talents, each according to his ability. The first two servants invested their talents and doubled their value, and when their lord returned, they entered into his joy. But the third servant buried his talent in the ground, and brought no good from it, and when his lord returned, he was cast out into the outer darkness.
TSEEEEWWWW. TSEEEWWWW. A fresh set of troops was out on the hillside, obliterating their targets in bursts of red light. It illuminated the gnarled shrubs of the Dry Lands and the curves of the Controllers' cruel grins so that I wondered if I had been cast out into the outer darkness myself.
But there was no wailing and gnashing of teeth, here. Only the grim efficiency of war.