I was following Mrs. Chapman through the city in the afternoon when I saw a snake acting in a way snakes don't.
It was in a dingy little side alley. I might not have paid attention to it at all if it weren't blue with an orange belly. An escaped pet, El thought, but then she said, Why is it trying to wrap itself in that handkerchief?
A real snake wouldn't want to wrap itself in cloth. It wouldn't be able to slither properly. I landed on a cornice of a nearby church and watched the snake. It had draped a dirty, dark red handkerchief over itself, and it kept rubbing into the cloth and flicking its tongue over it, like a little kid settling under a security blanket. I flew over the ledge of a tall building overlooking the alley to get a closer look.
The snake noticed my shadow fall over it. It froze. In a tiny voice, it said, "Oh God. God, please, don't eat me."
No, El whispered. But there was no escaping the truth. The snake hadn't used thought-speech. It wasn't a snake or a morph. It was a dæmon. With no human anywhere near.
My heart beat a frantic rhythm against my breastbone. If I'd been human, I would have thrown up. I would have clutched El tight enough to crush her. But the hawk didn't care. It just saw something prey-shaped that was not quite prey.
«Where is the rest of you?» El said.
"I don't know," said the dæmon, in its frayed little thread of a voice. "Underground. A basement. That's where they kept us. That's where I got out from."
Severed. I thought of social studies class, learning about World War II, the atrocities committed by the Third Reich. Never again, the textbook had said. Elhariel said, «Who did this to you?»
"Monsters," the dæmon whispered, burying its face in the handkerchief. "People-shaped monsters. Centipede monsters. Monsters covered in knives."
Yeerks, I thought, paralyzed, horrified. The Yeerks are severing people.
«Where?» El said. «Where are they doing this?»
"I don't know. Underground. I don't know. I'll never find Harry again." The dæmon twisted itself around the handkerchief and shivered.
Just then, I finally recognized her. It was like recognizing a severed arm, horribly detached from its context. There was a homeless man who slept under the scaffolding of a construction site a few blocks down. He had a snake dæmon, less than a foot long, gray-blue with an orange belly. I was looking at all that was left of him.
El said gently, «What's your name?»
The snake dæmon's head came out from under the handkerchief. It must be all she had left of Harry: a scrap of cloth that still held the smell of him. "I used to be Imrau. Now I'm nothing."
«I won't leave you here, Imrau,» El said. «Where do you want me to take you?»
"You're a hawk," Imrau said. "Make me stop. Just make it quick."
«I'm going to stop those monsters,» El said. «I won't let them do this to anyone else. I promise.»
Imrau tasted the handkerchief with her tongue, one last time. "Thank you."
El swooped down from the building ledge. One hard squeeze of her talon was all she needed. After all, Imrau was such a small snake. When she dissolved into Rusakov particles, I hardly felt the change in weight at all.
I almost flew to Ax's scoop without thinking about it. But Ax wasn't who I wanted to see right now. He wouldn't understand the weight of this, the sight of a dæmon severed and alone. I needed to talk to a human. So I flew to Loren's house instead. A warm rain began to gust against my face. «Please, let me in,» I told her as I approached, and she opened the kitchen window at the back of the house.
I demorphed as soon as I got inside. Elhariel needed to be physical, real, herself. I held her to my chest as soon as I had hands. Loren rested her hand lightly on my shoulder. I realized she had been saying my name over and over, and looked up. Jaxom was close enough to my leg that my skin prickled that way it does when someone is close enough to touch. She said, "Can you tell me what happened?"
"Call a meeting," I said. "Get everyone over here."
Loren didn't move. She studied my face.
"I can only tell the story once," I said. "Call Jake."
Loren went to the phone. Remembering what it was like to kiss Rachel, I closed my eyes and pressed my lips to El's head. Her feathers were smooth and smelled like nothing. I felt a hand on my shoulder. "They're coming."
Loren made me hot chocolate, like she usually does for Ax when he visits. It was too warm for it, really, but I drank it anyway, overwhelming my tongue with its richness. I wondered how other people could drink it without tears springing to their eyes. It made my teeth ache with sweetness. Maybe only Ax and I could really appreciate it.
Rachel came into the kitchen by the back door, Abineng staying outside because the house was too cramped for him. The moment she saw me she said, "What's wrong, Tobias?"
I put down my empty mug and walked her to the living room. "Let's just sit down, okay? I just. Give me some time." We sat together on the armchair – it was a tight fit, but it was against the back wall of the house, closer to where Abineng was standing outside in the warm drizzle. Jake and Marco came in next, sitting on pillows on the floor with their dæmons in their laps, then Cassie and Ax took the couch.
"Are you ready?" Loren asked me.
I wasn't. But I told them the story, switching off with El when my throat wouldn't work anymore. The room went very quiet, except for the occasional hiss from Diamanta or outraged snort from Abi outside, loud enough to hear through the wall.
Rachel said, matter-of-factly, "We need to find this place, wherever they're doing this, and burn it down."
Cassie scraped tears from her face with her knuckles, and held Quincy against the pulse in her throat. "Breaking their hosts. Making them easier to control. That's what they're trying to do, isn't it."
Marco stared at Diamanta wrapped around his hands and wrists, then looked up. "We have to be careful. Andalite warriors wouldn't be as outraged about this as we are. If we don't do this right, they'll figure out we're human."
Rachel crossed her arms. "What are we supposed to do? Just let them keep… mutilating people? Like the Nazis did to – " She cut herself off. She didn't have to finish. It was her people, Jake's, who had been the victims of the Darmstadt Process.
"That's not what I'm saying," Marco insisted. "I'm saying we have to act like this is just another Yeerk facility we're taking down, not something we want to wipe off the face of the earth."
"Marco's right," Jake said. "If we go rushing in and burn the place down, the Yeerks will know they struck a nerve. Let's contact Eva and Aftran and find out what they know about it. And we'll keep patrolling the area where Tobias found Imrau, to see if we notice anything else. But Tobias?" I looked up from petting El. "Don't go alone, next time. None of us should have to face that by ourselves."
"How many more people?" Rachel bit out. "How many more people are going to be severed while we sit here and wait?"
I touched Rachel's forearm. "What happens if the Yeerks find out you're human?"
Rachel flinched. I pulled my hand back. El hopped up to my shoulder, leaned toward Rachel, and whispered, "We get it, okay? We have human family to lose, now." She gave Loren and Jax a significant look. Rachel nodded sharply.
"Marco and I will go talk to Bachu about what to ask Eva," Jake said.
"Ax and I can go patrolling around that part of town tomorrow," Loren said, not looking at me. I didn't argue. The thought of finding another severed dæmon in an alley made me sick.
Everyone left except Loren and Ax, bikes unchained from the house's back railing as everyone headed home through the rain. Ax stared at me with his human eyes, brown and liquid and warm like hot chocolate. "What you saw today has shaken you badly."
My hand tightened around El. "I guess it's not really the same for you. You see Andalites without Guide Trees and Guide Trees without Andalites all the time." I was almost used to seeing Ax in human morph without a dæmon, by now. But seeing a dæmon without a human was still unspeakable, corrupt, like a glitch in reality.
"Our bonds can tolerate distance in a way yours with your dæmons cannot," Ax agreed. "But the idea of severing that bond is just as repugnant to us. And separation from our Guide Trees still has its costs, in the long term."
"Costs?" said Loren. "What do you mean?"
"Traditionally," said Ax, "there are limits on how long an Andalite should spend distant from his Garibah. We have always been a nomadic people. But there is a timespan called the galan maheet, equivalent to twenty-seven of your months, beyond which an Andalite should not go without visiting his Tree. The warning is repeated in many of our old stories."
"What happens if you stay away for longer than that?" I asked.
"Different stories give different warnings. Perhaps they are all true, or none are." Ax paused. "Difficulty empathizing with others. A kind of flattening of the personality: all the strongest traits exaggerated, losing the finer points. Loss of imagination. Memories losing their color and depth. Perhaps more I cannot remember."
"Ax," Loren said. "How long has it been since you were with Firi Dria?"
Ax blinked slowly, his eyes aimed firmly at the floor. "Twenty-eight of your months."
Jax started toward Ax, an instinct to comfort, but he stopped, because he had no dæmon to nuzzle. Loren reached out to Ax, slowly, giving him plenty of warning that the hand was coming to rest on his shoulder.
"Is there anything we can do?" I said quietly.
Ax said, "There are rituals that are meant to help. I do not know what else to do."
"There must be something," Loren said.
"The Hork-Bajir," I said. "They know more about hrala than any of us. Maybe they'll know."
"I am not sure," Ax said. "But I am willing to try."
I wasn't sure how to explain it to Toby. She was already looking at me kind of strangely. «Ax is having some problems. With his hrala, I guess.»
Toby tilted her head and peered at Ax, who shifted his weight uneasily from hoof to hoof. "I see. Do you know why?"
«Andalites have something that's kind of like our dæmons,» I said. «Part of their essence, their hrala, in a separate place. They call them Guide Trees. And Ax has been away from his Guide Tree for a long time.»
"You're saying that part of his hrala is on another planet," Toby said.
«Um. Yeah.»
"I'm going to have to bring in an expert," Toby said slowly. "By the way, Tobias, congratulations. You've been making a lot of hrala lately."
«I – what?»
"Well, you and Ax started making more hrala once you formed your family with Loren," Toby said, like it was no big deal. "Understanding and connection between people is a great producer of hrala. But you've been making even more the last few times I've seen you. Have you been making art? Keeping a journal? Connecting deeply with another person?"
If I'd been human, I would have flushed red all over. As a hawk, I was just struck silent. When Toby walked away to find her hrala expert, Loren held out her arm for me to perch on and took me aside. "It's Rachel, isn't it?"
«I… uh… yes?»
"I hope you're using protection while you're making hrala with Rachel," Loren said.
«Mom!» I hardly ever called her that, but if there was ever a time, it was now. «We're not – it's not like that!» If anything, it probably had a lot more to do with me morphing Yoort and infesting her than it had to do with kissing and… more than kissing. It was what made me feel the most connected with Rachel, the most intimate. But there was no way I was going to tell my mom about that. Or anyone else.
"But if it were like that," Loren insisted, "you would know what to do to stay safe, right?"
«We had sex ed in school! I know what condoms are,» I said, then instantly regretted saying the word 'condoms' to my mother.
Elgat Kar showed up just in time to rescue me from even more embarrassment. "Toby say Andalite friend have hrala problem."
«Yes,» I said. «Can you help him?»
The Hork-Bajir healer walked a circle around Ax, who fidgeted from hoof to hoof. "Broken root," Elgat said.
«What do you mean?» I said.
Elgat pointed from Jaxom to Loren and back. "Root," she said. "Like tree in earth."
Elhariel said, «So it's like… a tree drawing up water from the earth? But with hrala instead?»
Elgat seemed pleased. "Yes."
"So what can we do?" Loren said.
"Return to your earth," Elgat told Ax. "Be rooted."
«I cannot do that any more than you can return to yours,» Ax said, defensive.
"Only way to make better," Elgat said. "Other way is make less bad."
«I will accept 'less bad' if you can offer it.»
"Broken root," Elgat said. "Still need hrala. Like tree need water."
«You mean I need an alternate source,» Ax said, «since I don't have access to my Guide Tree.»
Elgat's eyes widened. "Andalite's root is tree? Not animal?"
«Humans have dæmons,» Ax said. «Andalites have Guide Trees.»
Elgat bent her head, extending out her forehead blades. "Andalite more like Hork-Bajir than Elgat know."
Ax hesitated, then tapped his tail against Elgat's forehead blades, a Hork-Bajir's greeting, blade to blade. «What can I do?»
"Find still place," Elgat said. "Hrala move, like river. But some place not river. Pond."
«A place where the current does not pull my hrala away,» Ax said.
"Yes. Stay in still place. Sleep in still place. Hork-Bajir can find."
«Perhaps Toby can come to my forest and help.»
"Yes." Elgat started circling Ax again. "Make hrala in still place. Many hrala. Show Toby. Toby tell you what make most."
«Is Toby busy now?» I said. I wasn't in Hork-Bajir morph, but I could just imagine the hrala leaking out of Ax, like blood from an open wound. I wanted to stitch it up, keep the life in him.
"Yes!" I heard Toby call through a stand of trees. "About to teach a lesson for the kids. Let's do this tomorrow morning, okay? I'll be at Ax's scoop."
One day, Elhariel said. This can wait one day.
«Thank you,» I called back to her.
«Thank you,» Ax said to Elgat, gravely.
«How are the free Controllers doing?» I asked her.
Elgat gestured in the direction of the yurt where they were staying. "Go talk and see. Good to talk. Tell story."
"We'll let you know how Ax is doing," Loren told her, "next time we come back."
The free Peace Movement hosts were gathered around the fire pit by their yurt, sitting on logs. Rachel's Chee friend Lourdes was with them, and Elgat's sister Meret. They all looked up as we came. "Tobias!" Meret said, as happy as Hork-Bajir always are to see me.
«Hi, Meret,» I said. «Making friends with the humans?»
"Yes," said Meret. "Julissa tell story of how she meet her dhalashi."
Julissa, a big woman with a colorful snake dæmon, groaned, "For the last time, Meret. Jamal isn't my husband. We aren't married."
"Julissa love Jamal," Meret said. "Stay with Jamal. Help Jamal always. Jamal and Julissa have story together. Jamal is dhalashi."
"Humans don't think of marriage that way, Meret," Lourdes said. "Or at least, humans in this particular time and place don't. They see it differently. You should respect that."
"I thought the story was pretty cute," Melissa said.
I didn't know what to say to her. I had no idea how to talk to Melissa at all, after what she said to me and Rachel last time we spoke.
Loren sat on a log. I perched on it next to her. I could feel all the humans staring at me. They didn't know my story, didn't understand what I was.
They stared at Ax, too. Miguel, the boy who once shoved my head down a toilet, said, "You're an Andalite. Do you know when they're coming?"
Ax's tail sagged slowly toward the ground. His main eyes pointed well away. «No. I have no means to contact the Andalite fleet.»
"Are they going to kill all the Yeerks?" Miguel said.
«That will most likely be their plan,» Ax said.
Miguel snarled, tore a fistful of grass from its roots, and tossed into the fire. It flared for a moment, then settled.
Melissa said, "Is that what you want, too?"
«What?»
"To kill all the Yeerks."
Ax hesitated. «No. It is not what I want. But I will kill as many as it takes to win this war.»
And there were all chances at a friendly fireside chat killed. I was angry at Ax, but I didn't say anything to him. Instead, I said, «Ax and I come here a lot. We'll come visit when we're here. Say hi. You can ask us questions if you have them.»
"I have one," Robin said. "If it's not too rude. Why are you a hawk?"
I sighed. «Okay. Were you there the first time we attacked the Yeerk Pool?» Robin and Jamal nodded. The others didn't. «Well. We had no idea what we were doing, and…»
"I called you here because I have intelligence from Eva and Aftran about the dæmon-severing Tobias learned about," said the Chee called Bachu. We were in her house, with Tobias and I in our natural forms, since her holograms would ensure we could not be seen through the windows. "The transmission was in the form of a voice recording. Would you like me to play it back for you?"
Marco and Cassie leaned forward eagerly in their seats. "Yes," Marco said, his hand squeezing one of Diamanta's coils.
Bachu played back the recording. The voice of Marco's mother – though not necessarily Eva herself – said, "Report number four. August 1999, human time, Generation 699, late-cycle, Yeerk time. I have major news from a Council meeting with the Visserarchy. First, we've managed to re-establish ourselves with the Council of Thirteen, over Visser Three's protests. But more importantly, Visser Three's research team has been busy." The voice went very grim. "I know why he's been experimenting with intercision on humans. He told the Council he's worked out a way to sever the connection between Andalites and their Guide Trees, based on the Darmstadt Process developed by the Nazis. Visser Three says he's already tested the technology on his host, Alloran-Semitur-Corass, and it worked."
I flinched backward. Somewhere distant, I heard Loren and Tobias gasp. My hearts clenched. Firi Dria was safe. She must be, or else I would not be myself. I had been trained as an aristh in how to survive long periods without my guide-tree, and the Hork-Bajir had instructed me further on how to conserve my hrala in Firi Dria's absence. Yet I had never longed for my guide-tree so strongly as I did in that moment. If not for my discipline, I would have run out to carve a shormitor into a tree, and left Bachu and her terrible message behind.
"I don't think there's much we can do to stop the intercisions on humans," Eva's voice continued. "The technology is already out there; we humans developed it fifty years ago. You can try to destroy the severance chamber – that's what Visser Three calls it – but I have to warn you, the Visser is expecting you to do just that. Maybe he didn't expect you to find out this soon, but he knows no Andalite could let this technology exist. So when you go after it, just know he'll be ready for you.
"I don't know where he's keeping the severance chamber, but I'm guessing it'll have to be large enough to hold an adult Andalite, and it'll need some serious power supply – it was enough of a money sink that Visser Three had to report it to the Council. Now, before I end this transmission, I have a request for you. I need you to pass along any blackmail you can get on Visser Three. The more I know, the more leverage I have on him. Eva and Aftran out."
Eva was correct. We would have to destroy this foul Yeerk invention and all of the data associated with it. But a bone-deep terror filled me at the thought of walking into the place where this severance chamber was kept. They would be waiting for us. What would happen if they caught me, dragged me into the chamber, trapped me inside and cut off my link to Firi Dria forever? I would be left as an empty shell of myself for Tobias and Loren to care for, if I managed to escape at all. Or I would be kept as a docile husk for some Yeerk to use as a host.
"Where the hell are they doing the intercisions on people?" Abineng exploded. "She didn't even tell us! Wherever it is, we need to burn it to the ground!"
"Hang on a minute," Cassie said. "I'm sorry if this is a sensitive subject, Ax, I really am. But can you tell us what a Guide Tree is?"
I kept only one eye on her, and looked pleadingly with my main eyes toward Tobias. I could not speak of my Guide Tree now, not to those who had no understanding of what it meant to me.
«Guide Trees are for Andalites kind of what dæmons are for us,» Tobias said. «Your other half. They're giant trees that can speak. But they can be far apart from each other. Obviously.»
Loren added, "Ax's Guide Tree is named Firi Dria."
A silence fell over the group. The dæmons looked surprised, ears pricking up, tails flicking. They watched me. They had not thought that I, too, might have a bond in hrala to the planet that made me.
"So," Cassie said, holding Quincy down on her shoulder as if he might try to fly away, "you're saying Visser Three severed Alloran. Just like they severed the dæmon Tobias met."
«Yes,» I said quietly. «It is the same.»
Another silence fell, until Jake broke it. "I hate to say it, but we have to go after the severance chamber first. If we try to stop the dæmon intercision first, it'll be way too obvious we're human."
Rachel crossed her arms. "So maybe we're trying to stop their research on humans before it gets too far."
Marco looked at me sharply. "What do you say, Ax? You're the Andalite. What would you do?"
«Destroy it,» I said without hesitation. «Destroy the severance chamber. Save the humans after, if I can.»
Rachel shot me a disgusted look. I barely even felt it. Even the idea of the severance chamber was dangerous. I realized I didn't want my people to know about it. I wanted it to be gone before any other Andalite minds could be tainted with the knowledge.
Marco said, "See what I mean? We've had intercision for fifty years. The Andalites have never seen it before. If they find out the Yeerks are using it on Earth, they're gonna come down like a ton of bricks to stop it, and they won't care how many humans get hurt along the way."
Diamanta opened her mouth a little, showing a flash of fang. "If you think about it, it was actually really stupid of Visser Three to develop this technology. Not that he's a military genius or anything." She flicked her slitted eyes to Marco in a knowing look I could not read.
Jake turned to Bachu. "Do you know where the Yeerks could bring in enough power to juice this thing?"
"Juice this thing," Marco said, mimicking his voice. "You sound so action hero when you talk like that."
Bachu said, "I can narrow it down based on the power draw required by the Darmstadt Process."
"Don't call it that," Rachel spat. "Call it what it is. Intercision. Severing."
"Very well. Intercision. The other Chee and I will analyze the power grid and give you an answer."
The meeting dissolved. Cassie started doing her chores around the barn. Jake and Marco walked away, talking to each other in low, intense voices. Rachel took on the distant look of a private thought-speech conversation, then left on her own. Loren left the barn. Tobias and I morphed human and followed her into the woods. Loren took the walk to my still place.
I had to scrap my beloved old scoop and start afresh in the place Toby pointed out for me, a dip between two small hills where the soil was loamy with gathered moisture. It didn't feel any different to where I had been before, in any respect but the obvious physical ones, but Toby insisted that this was a place where hrala pooled and became still. My scoop was still rudimentary compared to the previous one, but I had carved shormitors honoring Firi Dria on the trees all around it.
Loren stopped at a shormitor and traced it with her fingers. Jaxom looked up at me. He said, "Talk to me, Ax."
For a moment, the words dried up inside my mind. Then Tobias landed on my back, and with his weight, the anguish came pouring in. «Alloran,» I cried, heartsick. «He begged me to end his life. And now Visser Three has done far worse than kill him.»
Tobias's talons dug into my fur. «Ax. Ax, you were trying to be kind.»
«It doesn't matter that I tried,» I said. «It would have been kinder to kill him quickly with my blade. I tried, and all I have done is prolong his suffering with no hope of recovery.»
Loren was still tracing a shormitor with her fingers. "This is the name of your Garibah, isn't it?"
«Yes,» I said softly. Would I ever be reunited with Firi Dria? My Tree felt so distant, and so fragile.
"Alloran's was named Henga Sholeth," Loren said. "He had a holo of her on the Jahar."
Henga Sholeth. The life in it would go dormant, to the same sleeping mind as any other ancient tree in its forest, until the next baby Andalite laid at its roots awakened it. Or perhaps the violent severing of its Andalite half would kill it forever, blackening its roots in the soil. Henga Sholeth, who didn't even get to feel the moment when its Andalite died, its thoughts rotted away before it had time to wonder what had happened.
«It won't happen to you, Ax,» Tobias said. «We won't let it.»
«Of course not,» I said. «We will destroy it before they ever get the chance.» But still, it made my hearts beat less painfully, knowing that Tobias was afraid for me. It made me feel less of a coward for the terror pulsing through my body.
"You don't have to go at all," Loren said. "Maybe it would be safer if you didn't. This technology was designed to break you, not the rest of us."
«The severance chamber is based on your human 'Darmstadt Process,'» I said, more harshly than I intended. «None of us are truly safe.» My breath was heaving in my chest. «Promise me. Promise that if they do sever me from Firi Dria, somehow, that you will kill me. I will already be dead in any case, and that way the Yeerks cannot use what is left of me.»
«Same goes for me,» Tobias said. «Without Elhariel, I'm nothing.»
Loren said, "Suicide is a sin, according to my faith, even if you ask someone else to do it for you. So I won't ask you to do that for me. Just send me to the hospital to get care until I wither away on my own." She gathered Jaxom into her arms. "But I respect that you feel differently. I… I'll do it. Though I hope to God I never need to."
Jaxom reached out and traced my shormitor with his snout. "How would I know this means Firi Dria? Can you show me how to read it?"
I knew what Jaxom was doing. I was supposed to create hrala here in the still place, to replenish what I lost. Toby had determined that I generated the most hrala when I created and connected in ways related to my Andalite culture. Connecting my culture to another was best of all. Perhaps Loren genuinely wanted to know how to read a shormitor. But she also wanted me to create hrala, for the sake of my health.
I searched within myself and found that I wanted to teach her and Tobias both. «Very well.» I pointed at the tree with my blade. «The first stroke indicates my relationship to the subject…»
Three days later, I discovered another severed dæmon while patrolling the neighborhood where Tobias found Imrau. She was a frilled lizard, which I knew from my almanac to be from a continent nearly directly across the planet from this one. She was hiding in the shadow of a Dumpster. There were no humans in sight.
I perched in a tree on a street near the Dumpster. I asked the dæmon, gently, «Where is your human?»
"I don't know," she said, in a small voice. "Dark. Cool. Underground. Gone. Not with me."
«What is your name?» I asked, because if I was to witness her death, I ought to know.
"Fortale."
«Can you come out into the light, Fortale?» I said gently. «I wish to help you.»
Fortale hesitated, then emerged. She looked gray, not the natural gray that Earth lizards sometimes were, but a faded, ghastly gray. When I saw her, I was finally able to experience the horror the humans clearly felt about severed dæmons. I could see Firi Dria in my mind, her roots rotting in the ground, her leaves falling blackly from withered branches. My bird's heart hammered in my chest. No Andalite had ever imagined such a thing before. None of us had ever known such an abomination could be possible.
The Animorphs had been right. If my people found out, if they felt the heartsickness I felt, they would burn Earth to a cinder if it meant the severance technology could never be used again.
Fortale was dying, or perhaps in some way already dead. I knew the ritual for this. I could not forget, after reciting it over the bodies of my niece and nephew, laid at the roots of their neighboring Guide Trees.
«Would you like me to end your pain for you?» I asked, voice very soft.
"Yes," Fortale moaned. "Oh, God, please."
I seized her in my talons and carried her up to the roof of a nearby building. «To the water that gave birth to us,» I said. «To the grass that feeds us. To the freedom that unites us. We return to the earth. Freedom is our only cause. Duty to the people, our only guide. Reverence for all that lives, our sacred trust. Care for…» Our Guide Trees and their soil, is what I would have said next to an Andalite. But now I had to say something different. «The care between human and dæmon, our most joyous vow. Fortale, I offer your life to the earth with open hearts.»
"Thank you," the dæmon whispered as my beak descended, and she dissolved into the breeze.
I was afraid. Not the normal fear of anticipating a battle, but a bone-deep terror that made me sick. It did not become a warrior, to feel this way.
In only three days, we were going to the place where they kept the severance chamber, which could be the end of me and Firi Dria both. I would master my terror, or it would master me.
The facility was in the new wing of the community center, supposedly "under construction." Contractors could be Controllers too, after all. It was finished on the outside, but through the high, narrow windows I could see that it was a mess of equipment on the inside.
We still should be attacking whatever place they're using to sever homeless people from their dæmons, Abineng grumbled at me as we flew toward the community center as flies. They're mutilating people right now, and they haven't even used the severance chamber on anyone but Visser Three's host.
What about Ax? I shot back. We can't let them do that to him.
«They have really high security here for a construction site,» Tobias said. He had come to scout it out during the day. «There's a code to get into the new wing of the building. And the outside's really solid – metal doors, and those high windows – we can't just smash our way in. And I'm pretty sure those contractors wandering around and going in and out are really security guards.»
«So we'll hitch a ride on one of them,» Jake said. «Find a place to demorph inside.»
Easier said than done. Most people notice when flies land on them. One of the so-called contractors was wearing a backpack; I grabbed on and crawled into a side pocket.
«Everyone grabbed on?» Jake said.
We all checked in. We were good. I listened to the Controllers talk as they went. The guy I was riding on said, "Where's Akdor 212?"
"Called away. The Andalite bandits cut the power lines going to the facility out in the Dry Lands. Akdor and her crew were sent off to repair them."
We didn't do that. The free Hork-Bajir did, as a distraction from what we were doing. Just another favor Toby and her people had done for us.
"Is that facility even worth it with all these bandit raids?" my guy said.
"What do I know?" the other guy said. "I do like having Akdor around, though. She's the only one who isn't afraid of the Sub-Visser."
Someone punched in the key code at the door. «Did anyone see that?» Jake said.
«Sort of,» Marco said. «Four seven three… something.»
"I'll meet you for the next shift in a minute," my guy said. "I hate how these human hosts need to leak out of some orifice or another every hour."
«You live in a pool of sludge and you think peeing is gross?» Marco said, outraged.
«Come on, the tall one is going to the bathroom, everyone latch on!» Jake said. «Don't let them notice you.»
«Aaaaahh!» Cassie cried.
«Are you okay, Cassie?» I said.
«I hopped to the tall guy's shoe. He stepped on me, kind of. I'm clinging to the arch of his shoe, in front of the heel. I need to demorph soon.»
We hopped off the guy while he was peeing, hoping he'd be distracted. Let me just say that I hope I never have to be that close to a urinal again.
«He's gone,» Jake said. «Let's demorph, fast.»
I saw Cassie's shattered fly body multiplied a hundred times in the lenses of my eyes. A year ago, I would have been terrified, frozen, pleading with Cassie to come back to me. A year ago, I was a different person. Now I knew she would make it, because she was Cassie and she knew her body better than any of us, and the fear barely touched me.
«There's no way all our battle morphs are gonna fit in here,» Tobias said, shaking off the last of his fly morph. He was right. It was a pretty big public bathroom, but my elephant all on its own was going to be a tight fit.
"Then we space out the big morphs," Jake said. "Rachel, you go elephant first, and Tobias can be your eyes and tell you what you need to smash. Then Marco, Loren, Ax in polar bear morph, me, and Cassie as the rear guard."
I didn't like the idea of leaving the others behind, mid-morph and vulnerable. But I also wanted to smash up this awful place as soon as I could. So I focused on the strength of the elephant morph and lost myself in it.
It turned out I couldn't get all the way elephant in the space of the bathroom. So I made the door wider so I could get out into the hallway. Well there's our cover blown, Abineng said wickedly. Oh well!
I heard cries and thumping footsteps as Hork-Bajir leapt into the hallway to stop me. As if they could. «This way!» Tobias cried, leading me through the bladed melee. I stampeded though them. There were still some at my back, but the others could deal with them. I had soul-destroying technology to stomp on.
More Hork-Bajir boiled into the hallway, coming out from behind every door. «Come on!» Tobias cried from up ahead. «I see this room down the hall – it's got all these wires and – »
But I couldn't keep up with him. There were too many of the enemy, slashing at my flanks, even trying to climb me like monkeys. I could hear the others fighting behind me but I couldn't afford to look back. Tobias circled back around toward me. «Chapman's up ahead. And another human-Controller I don't recognize. She – »
I saw her, dimly, up ahead. A girl just a little older than me, blonde, dressed in pink and blue, pulling a wheeled fish tank behind her. Through the screams of the Hork-Bajir and the roars of my friends, I heard her say, "That's all the bandits, isn't it, Chapman? Excellent." Then she held out her arm and sprayed a cloud of white gas down the hallway.
The Hork-Bajir screamed as it hit them. Tobias shrieked and crashed to the ground. «No! Tobias!» I shouted, and then it was on me, too, stinging my eyes and nose. «Look out! There's gas! Tobias is hurt, Jake, we have to help him!» I turned sideways in the hallway, trying to haul myself around, knocking gassed Hork-Bajir over like dominoes.
Too late. Marco was on the ground, twitching. Beyond him, Loren, Ax, and Jake lay like furry mountains. If Cassie was up, I couldn't see her through the gas. I was the only one standing.
We're an elephant, Abineng thought, numbly. Too big for the gas to work.
«Rachel!» Cassie called to me. «Please tell me you're okay!»
«I… yeah, the gas didn't…» My thoughts were slow, too slow, but I was still in the fight. Somewhere in the background, I could hear the Controller girl talking to me, mocking me, but the words didn't come through.
«Rachel, we have to get out of here,» Cassie said. «I was too far back to get gassed. We're the only ones who can help them. Break down a wall and get us out of here!»
Break down a wall. Okay. I could do that. I was good at that. I crunched my way through a side door, widening it, and broke through. Nothing but a solid brick exterior wall and high, narrow windows. I turned and smashed into the next room. A gym, with a big door for bringing sports equipment in and out. I ran for the door. «Cassie! This way!»
The metal of the door bent and twisted around me. Brick crumbled and alarms went off. Any Controllers left standing after the gas would be coming after us any minute. I stampeded toward the woods, barely even noticing the obstacles in my way. I heard a crash and a moose bellow behind me. I wanted to turn back and help Cassie, but she said, «Keep going, Rachel! You've been Draconed. You're badly burned. You need to demorph.»
Was I? I couldn't even feel most of my body anymore. But Cassie wouldn't lie to me. As soon as I got under tree cover, Abineng pictured his horns and his stiff black mane, and the changes came. When I was human again, my heart jackhammered against my ribs, so hard I could practically feel my body vibrating. "We need to get them out," Abi said, rearing back on his hooves. "I can't think. I can't think. What do we do?"
There was a terrible racket through the trees. I dove behind a bush, while Abi snorted and stood his ground. «Rachel!» Cassie cried. «Are you here?»
Abi brayed in surprise, then settled down. "You scared the shit out of me."
I came out from behind the bushes as Cassie demorphed. I should have been able to come up with something to do. But I couldn't. When Jake was too screwed up over Tom to lead, Ax had talked about the chain of command. Whatever the chain of command was, Cassie was above me. I said, "Cassie. How are we going to get them out?"
The last of the fur melted away from Cassie's face. She was crouched on the ground, holding Quincy to her heart like a talisman, eyes closed.
"Cassie," I said. "They're going to use the severance chamber on them. We have to get them out."
Cassie's face tightened. The weight was settling on her, the same weight that Jake carried all the time, now. If only I could take it off her shoulders. "I'm going to go get help," she said. "But it might take a while. You're going to have to keep the Yeerks distracted. Delay them from using the severance chamber, and maybe give everyone chances to demorph."
"On it," I said. My heart was still thumping away, but there was also the thrill, the fire that made it all easy once it was lit. I'd have to get back in the building, if I was going to do this. I focused on the fly.
"But don't try to pull some kind of Lone Ranger rescue thing on your own," Cassie said. "You hear me? You can't do this alone."
"Okay," I said. "Prince Cassie."
"Oh, don't you dare!" But Cassie was smiling right up until her mouth pushed out and hardened into a beak.
«I could call you Princess Cassie instead,» I said. «Just like when we were in first grade.»
«Not in front of the others!»
«What, you don't want anyone to know you liked being a princess when we played pretend?»
«Then I'll just have to tell them that you always wanted to be a lady knight.»
A terrible sense of foreboding settled over me. Abi wondered, privately, if this might really be the end for Cassie and me, if everything would go wrong and we'd never see each other again. «Cassie?» I said. «You got this, okay? Let's do it.»
«Thank you,» she said, and we both flew away. It was a long journey for a fly back to the community center. It was time to find out where the Yeerks were keeping my friends.