2. ENEMIES OF THE STATE

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." – Commander Bill Adama, in Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica

Illim

I said goodbye to Julian, and as I slid from his ear into the pool, I did the first thing I always did, and swam for a computer terminal.

The pool used to be an intimate, relaxing place for me. I would bask in the Kandrona and the company of my fellows. Now I think of the pool in much the same way as Julian used to think of his gym class as a boy: an arena where every move I made was under scrutiny, was always found wanting, and would be punished through the mechanisms of social control. In his case, the punishment was at the hands of bullies. In my case, it was by sub-Vissers. Very little difference between the two, in the end.

So ever since I swam deep into the Yeerk Peace Movement, I started to do the same thing Julian did in gym class long ago: I faded into the background, made an appearance of following the rules, and spoke only to people I could trust.

I inserted my palps into the computer interface. I had many messages waiting on my account, which with instruction from Bachu the android I had secured well against espionage, but for now I ignored them all in favor of my favorite message of every rane: the latest installment of my favorite ongoing epic, The Sage in the Weeds.

Julian laughs at me for loving this epic, calling it worse than any telenovela he'd seen on early afternoon Univision. I know it's corny, because traditionalist epics are one of the few kinds of poolside entertainment the Empire will allow. It's Yeerkish art in its purest form. No Empire, no conquered planets, just a story about Yeerks in our vast and varied pools back on the homeworld, which I had never seen and maybe never would, but I felt like I knew, at least in some pale, sun-bleached way. Maybe they told epics much like this one on the Iskoort world Mokad had visited, in the endless system of pipes and tanks where they swam through miles-high towers.

But when I opened the message, instead of telling me the latest exploits of Margoth and their mysterious mentor, the Sage, it read: "By order of Visser One, this entertainment has been permanently suspended."

Shocked, I returned to my message queue and saw that there was a pool-wide broadcast from one of Visser One's Blue Bands, Sub-Visser 201, ominously titled "New policies to ensure loyalty and cohesion in the Empire." I read it, dread soaking deeper into my skin than the Kandrona. When I finished the message and closed it, I realized that all of my other waiting messages had been about the announcement. The Empire was coming for the Peace Movement in earnest now, and we were afraid.

I had been about to check out what the Peace Movement was saying in our private chatroom, but I felt the brush of palps against my back, and I disengaged from the interface. It was Firtips, the Yeerk in the Peace Movement most dedicated to collecting subversive stories and legends, so our people don't lose our history. So close, I could feel Firtips' electric fields thrumming with tension. They said, "I read the broadcast. They'll come for me first. What do I do?"

My own fields started crackling with fear. Firtips was not just a friend, but an important resource. I didn't even know how many epics lived in their memory and nowhere else. But where could I take Firtips when they would only starve for lack of Kandrona? There was no safehouse in the world that could accommodate a Yeerk. But I had to do something. I had to at least ask.

I touched my palps to Firtips and impressed my resolve upon them. "I have allies outside the pool. You know this. I am going to find help for you."

"Thank you, Illim."

I barely swam twenty bodylengths from the computer interface before I was accosted again, this time by one of the four Yeerk spawn-siblings of the Derane germline in the Peace Movement. "Did you see the new broadcast?" Derane demanded. "There are four approved epics left, and all of them set post-exodus, in the Empire era! All traditional songs, legends, and epics banned, even if they're not actively subversive! And apparently we're not allowed to refer to Yeerks with gender markers anymore, because that's not Yeerkish, it's a host thing, though I wish Visser One the best of luck getting Visser Three to comply with that directive, he's – oh sorry, I mean they're – so attached to all the powerful male trappings of their host. And what will this mean for – "

"Slow down, Derane," I said. I could understand why xe was so worked up over that last point, though, as Derane and xyr siblings identified strongly with their Taxxon hosts' worker gender. "I've read the broadcast, I know what's in it."

"Well, your feeding cycle is siar-rane, and you don't work at the Pool like me, so what you don't know is what the reaction's been since the broadcast went out yesterday," Derane said. "Most in the pool just complain how few entertainment options there are now, and are practicing to make sure they don't say anything gendered about themselves or others in front of the Sub-Vissers. The true believers never called for all this censorship, but now that the leadership's done it they talk about how it should have been implemented long ago to keep our thoughts pure. And our sort? Well…"

This must be the lowest-ranking of the four Deranes (not that I cared about rank in the Empire, of course), because none of xyr siblings would play up the drama this much. But I indulged xyr, because with xyr Taxxon host xe lived at the Pool full-time, always with a finger on the pulse of the Pool, and I really needed to know. "Yes? What's our sort saying?"

"Well, specifically, those fusty Peace Movement traditionalists, like my highest-ranking sibling. You know how much trouble we've had getting them to sign on to anything, since they're so filshig stuck on the old ways. Well, they're all in a fine frenzy over the old legends getting banned. They're afraid we're going to forget where we came from and lose touch with our roots completely. I don't like any of this, Illim, I'd be the first to say, but this is an opportunity for us. The outrage is strong right now, especially from the go-homers. This is your chance to really unite the Peace Movement behind a cause."

"You mean our chance," I said, feeling a little overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility everyone was putting on me in the wake of the new policies.

"No, I mean your chance," Derane said. "I don't know what the leadership structure of this movement is, if there even is one, but as far as inspiration goes, you're swimming in Mokad's wake. People respect you and your host, Illim."

"Why?" I said, before I could stop myself.

Derane didn't say anything for what felt like too long. I could feel Yeerks moving rapidly all around us, the snap and hum and squeak of conversation a hush, eerily quiet in the wake of the broadcast. Why hadn't I noticed when I first dropped in the Pool?

Finally, Derane said, "Well, you know why my siblings and I respect you, Illim. People like us, we know what happened between you and your host, and we think… well, we think it's amazing you found a way to be kind in a system like this." Xyr fields wavered with what would be a shrug in a human. "The hostless Yeerks who just want something better? They like the way you've taken up Mokad's ways of asking about the future. You don't pretend to know the answers, but you ask questions that make us look forward. And the old-school homeworld conservatives respect you because you actually listen to Firtips's old stories. Me, I'm more interested in coming up with new stories, more relevant ones, you know? But you like those. You even have commentary."

"That's not my commentary," I objected. "I pass on the stories to my host. He's much more insightful about that sort of thing."

"And you give credit where it's due, see?" Derane said. "Come on, Illim. Swim while the current's flowing your way. We need you."

So with that, I went back to a computer interface and answered all the messages I could. Then it was time to go back to Julian. Reunited with him, I almost believed that I could do everything Derane said I could. I told him everything that had happened in the pool. He said that not much had changed in the voluntary area. «I guess it doesn't matter what TV we watch,» he observed dryly, «since it's just like those toys they put in ferret cages or whatever. Who cares what the pets get up to?»

«If that's what our overlords think, they haven't seen enough TV. Some of your science fiction programs are very nearly documentaries.»

Julian laughed in his mind. I love when he does that – laugh so only I can hear. «So. Firtips. What can we do for them? You think Wena or her associates might take them on?»

«Let's find out.» We left the Pool through an exit in the mall and drove to Wena Shih's house – though her name was Bachu, in truth.

When she answered the door, she said, "I heard the news," and let me in. "Anything to drink?"

Julian shook his head. I paced. Julian is not fidgety by nature, but I don't see the point of having legs and arms if they just go unused, and Julian says it's good exercise so he lets me. Kalysico, though, I left in her tank in the corner, where she could swim her circles in peace. "Our… historian, for lack of a better word, is in danger. Their name is Firtips. They collect all kinds of stories. That's not allowed now." I stopped and looked Bachu in the eye. That sort of thing works well on humans, and if it might work on androids, I would make the attempt. "Can any of your people help? Like you did with Mokad?"

Bachu petted the thick ruff of her false dog dæmon. "A few would be willing to give basic sensory access. But none are prepared to share speech, hologram, and motor functions as I was." She looked up at me. "I would do it. Partner with this Yeerk, in full."

I felt a rush of relief. If we could just organize their escape, Firtips would be safe. Then Julian said, "But what about the others? My mother was in Spain during the rise of Franco. I know what happens next. The obvious targets like Firtips are just the beginning."

"I can try to convince others," Bachu said. "But I know that sitting in an android's head, alone and unable to speak or act, is no life for a Yeerk. I'm sorry I can't offer anything more. I suppose you could ask the Andalite bandits if they'd use the morphing power like they did on Aftran, let your renegade Yeerks trap themselves in forms of their choice."

I remembered the way Mokad hissed at me when I suggested the same thing to her. «It's better than getting tortured to death by the Empire,» Julian pointed out. But Mokad was right. Getting trapped in morph wasn't true freedom. What had she called it? Voluntary self-extinction.

"It's the Pool," Julian said, walking up to Kalysico's tank. "That's how the Empire really controls them. Yeerks need Pools." He rubbed two fingers against the tank, and Kalysico pressed her lips to them through the glass. "The oatmeal addicts can do without Kandrona, but that's not really living. You and the Andalite bandits don't have a Pool, and you can't, because you don't have a Kandrona generator."

I jerked up and stared at Bachu. "But you do. In your head. Our portable Kandrona generators are several cubic meters, and only last for a few uses. Yours are tiny, and they seem to stay good forever." I leaned toward her. "Drop your hologram."

Julian was thinking that maybe my request was rude, but Bachu did it. I stared at the chrome casing of her doglike head. "Kandrona shine and strengthen us," I breathed. "You had it all along. The key to saving the Peace Movement. And you used it to kidnap Yeerks from their homes and keep them in solitary confinement." A punishment so shockingly cruel to Yeerks we had no word for it, no concept. Even torture by Kandrona starvation is done in the company of other Yeerks. I remembered going with Mokad to take Estril 828 from the other android's head and mercy-kill them. They had been in Naxes's head for years without contact with any other living being.

"I never did that," Bachu said quietly.

"No," said Julian. "But you knew about it. And you didn't stop it." I could feel him catching on. His heart started pounding, and I didn't have it in me to slow it down. "Dios mio. If they can make a Pool-sized Kandrona generator to the same scale as this one in Bachu's head – they wouldn't need to put it in the EMS Tower." His eyes focused on Bachu. "You could fit it in your basement. All this time, you could have fit a rogue Yeerk Pool in your basement and you didn't even – madre de Dios." Julian fell silent, but in his mind he remembered Estril 828 in his palm, quickly and silently drying to death after years of unspeakable torment.

"Mokad told me that your kind are pacifists," I said into Bachu's blank metal face. I was too absorbed to know what Julian's face was doing, but he would take care of that. "That hasn't stopped you from doing a grave wrong to my people. You have a chance to make it right. You can save peaceful Yeerks, like me and Mokad, the same way the Andalite bandits have helped save our hosts. We will get you blueprints for a Pool-sized Kandrona, recipes for Pool water, design specifications for a Pool, whatever you need. But you have to be willing to build it."

The android's chrome face revealed nothing. I don't know how long we stared at each other like that, the android, my partner and I. It felt like a long time, in that dragging way the human mind perceives moments of significance, distorting my perception, too.

"You have reinforced a schism among us," Bachu said, as if the androids had been debating my words for a hundred years. For all I knew of the processing power in those computer brains of theirs, maybe they had. "Most of us opposed taking Yeerks from the Pool in the first place. They disavow responsibility and refuse to take the risk of exposure that would come with housing our own Pool. They say that any of us who participate in building such a Pool endanger us all." Bachu's hologram snapped back into place, her broad brown face set into determined lines, her dæmon's ears pricked. "I warn you, they will try to stop us. But there are enough of us who feel responsible. Enough of us to make it possible. Yes, Illim, Mr. Tidwell. We will build it."

Relief thundered through Julian. He fumbled for a chair and dragged it next to Kalysico's tank so he could sit down with her. I slowed his breath, made it steady. He opened the top of the tank, rolled back his sleeve, and plunged his hand in the water. His fingertips tickled from Kaly's fish kisses. "Actually," she said from the tank, "He'll have something to drink after all."

Bachu came back a few minutes later with a cup of tea, chamomile by the smell. Julian took it with his free hand and breathed in the steam. I reveled in the smell, letting Julian feel my enjoyment. That's one of his favorite things about having me around, the way I appreciate things he takes for granted, and I try to give him that every chance I get.

"I think you know what you have to do for us to be able to build it." I realized with a start that Bachu was still standing in front of us. "But do you know what you're going to say to your people to get them to come?"

"Didn't Mokad tell you the conditions we're living in? They've only gotten worse. Why wouldn't they come?"

"I've lived through many terrible regimes," Bachu said. "People adjust to new realities. They cling to status quo over terrifying change, even when the status quo is grim. Tidwell, you must know, from your mother. Many people left Franco's Spain, but many did not, though they could have."

Julian nodded stiffly. His mother was one of the ones who had left. But his grandparents had stayed behind. He remembered visiting them in Madrid, always on the verge of asking why they had stayed, and never quite able to bring himself. Strangely, it made me wish I could have been with him back then, to give him the courage to learn the darkest points in their story before they died. Aloud, he said, "She left because she thought things would be better in the United States."

"Exactly," Bachu said. "It's not enough for people to know how bad things are, how much it's crushing them. They have to have hope for something better."

"And we're not offering them much, are we?" Julian said quietly. "Just a small Pool in the basement of a mysterious robot."

I never have conversations out loud with Julian in front of other people, but I could do it in front of Bachu – it wouldn't be strange to her. "No, Julian. We're offering them more than that. Remember what Mokad told me about the world of the Iskoort? What it was like for the Yoort there? If we had our own pool, we could actually work to make that happen. A place for Yeerks to be free in our own way."

"Then tell your people about it," Bachu said. "I was there. I saw how it affected Aftran. Revolutions have been built on less."

"I can't," I said. "Not without Aftran."

"I can pass her a message," Bachu said. "Ask her to tell the whole story."

"Please," I said. "Please. You're right. We need some hope." I laughed bitterly, making the surface of the chamomile tea ripple. «There's so much work to do, Julian,» I thought. «And there's papers to grade tonight.»

Kalysico rubbed her scales against our fingers. «Julian and I will take care of that. You start thinking of what to do next.»

Aftran

"On the Iskoort world," I said, "they don't just use memory transfer protocols for interrogations. They use them for fun, for the sheer joy of experiencing something the way another being remembers it. Memories are the most valuable commodities they buy and sell. Many Yoorts go their whole lives without ever having an Isk, and because they've lived through so many people's memories, they don't feel like they're missing out on anything."

The computer pinged. Recording paused. Incoming message. I sighed. Eva took it, so I wouldn't have to lose the thread of my story again. I'd been trying for days to tell it, as Illim had requested, but it wasn't easy. Not only was it like giving up a piece of my spirit for any Yeerk who heard the tale to see and wonder at, I kept getting interrupted.

Sub-Visser 201 of the Blue Bands said, "The Blade Ship has sent a shuttle. They're requesting docking permissions."

The last thing either Eva or I wanted right now was to deal with Visser Three or his minions. Visser Three had tried to put "Visser One" on trial for treason, but "Visser One's" purported daring escape from a firefight with Visser Three and the Andalite bandits, and equally daring return to her Empire-class Nova ship, had allowed us to put a positive gloss on events, even if it was by no means clear to the Council which Visser deserved the credit for supposedly destroying the free Hork-Bajir colony. Visser Three was incensed that Eva and I had taken away his victory over the Andalite bandits, when he and his disgusting pet Sub-Visser had most of them in torture chambers. Without the spectacle of a trial for recourse, we were worried where his frustrations might lead him next.

«One way or another,» Eva thought, «we're going to have to deal with him. Turning him away will only prolong the inevitable.» Out loud, she said, "Let them lock on. Have a security detail ready for me at Docking Bay Three."

"Yes, Visser," said Sub-Visser 201, and broke the connection.

Eva strapped on a belt with a Dracon beam holstered in it. Mercurio was big enough to wear one too, but of course he wouldn't be able to fire it.

It would have been courteous to meet Visser Three, or whatever creatures of his he'd sent, on the bridge. There was no way we were giving him a chance at the bridge of this ship, nor were we interested in being courteous. We waited in the bare, wide-open docking bay with a full detail of Blue Bands, which barely felt like enough after all the monstrous morphs of Visser Three's we'd seen. «Marco and the Animorphs have survived him,» Eva thought. «Both of us have survived him. We will survive him again.»

I felt him before I saw him, that mental suggestion of fear and awe. It was easier to resist now that I knew from Cassie that it was a deliberate performance put on using Alloran's telepathic abilities. Djafid, the Andalite thought-song.

Since I share my thoughts with Eva as much as possible, to keep open a two-way street, she was able to comment, «He's just constantly thought-singing the Imperial March from Star Wars, isn't he? Dun-dun-dun dun-DAH-dun dun-DAH-dun…»

I very nearly giggled aloud. Eva held it back but managed to keep the amused twist to her lips as Visser Three stepped out of the shuttle. I felt a sudden wave of nausea go through Eva at the sight of him. If the rumors about him severing his host Alloran were true, then Visser Three was walking around in something more than a corpse but less than an Andalite. The idea disgusted me – riding an empty shiftless mind like that, butchering a thinking being and animating the pile of meat left behind, like a zombie from a human horror movie. Was this how Esplin really believed Yeerks were meant to live?

«What do you find so amusing?» Visser Three said, glowering down at us. He was a foot taller than Eva, but she was used to that. «Still pleased about stealing your Andalite accomplices from me?»

"Ah yes," said Eva, coolly raising an eyebrow. "Because Andalite revolutionaries are so renowned for their cooperation with Vissers."

«Do you think I'm a fool?» Visser Three sneered. «The Andalite bandits freed the traitor Aftran 942. They collaborate with treacherous Yeerks when it suits them.»

"Which you would know, of course, since you love Andalites so very well," Eva said.

«You accuse me of host sympathy?» Visser Three glowered. «I severed this Andalite host, broke it from the inside. Meanwhile, you with your Sharing have kept us from a swift and victorious war in the name of being nice and convincing to the humans. Humans don't need convincing. They need to be rounded up and taken.»

"If you understood anything about humans you'd know how many weapons they have and how willing they are to – "

«So you're afraid of humans?» Visser Three pressed. «That's why you insist on your war of infiltration? Not because you sympathize with them? Seek to protect them?»

"Not afraid," Eva said levelly. "Simply aware of their capabilities. And no, of course I do not sympathize with the host bodies, human or otherwise."

«Very well, Visser One. I look forward to seeing you prove it.» He pointed a stalk eye back at his ship. «Bring him out.»

I could feel the Blue Bands tense behind me. Two of the Visser's human-Controllers came out of the shuttle, each holding a holocam with the recording light on. Between them was a child, maybe ten years old. For a moment it seemed that he might be severed, like Alloran, but then a tiny snake head flickered out from his sleeve. He looked mixed, half East Asian, a little like Marco. Oh no, Mercurio whispered silently. Oh no.

I flinched before Eva could stop me. I recognized that boy. His face had appeared in the rush of images and feeling when Visser One had gone palp-to-palp with me, to share her life story. It was Darwin Gervais, the boy she had thought of as her son.

«That's right,» Visser Three said smugly. «I found the boy you had with Essam's host, when the two of you were busily betraying the Empire. So sentimentally attached, you procreated.» And the Visser was right. It was no light thing, for a Yeerk, to procreate. It was the most important thing in our lives, an end we willingly gave our lives to achieve.

Eva looked at the boy, stone-faced now. «He must be a Controller,» she thought. «He'd never be so calm otherwise.» Aloud, she said, "I didn't do it out of sentiment. I did it to learn about humans, which is more than you ever managed to do. I gave him to other humans to raise. What does it matter?"

Visser Three extended his hand behind him. One of the adult human-Controllers passed him a handgun. He passed it, grip-first, to us. «If it doesn't matter,» he said silkily, «then prove it.» Darwin stepped forward, face blank. Right in front of us. His dæmon emerged a little farther from his sleeve, pencil-thin, eyes like dull little beads. «If the boy means nothing to you, then kill him.» He pointed an eyestalk back at the human-Controllers. «This is being streamed live to the Council of Thirteen's databanks, by the way. Send them your regards.»

Eva's hand curled around the grip of the handgun. I could hear her mind coolly assessing the options, in a way that only this woman and her son could do when in such a grim bind. «I've never fired a handgun before; there's no chance I'll be able to get a shot in the Visser deadly enough that he can't morph it away. His goons are recording this. If I shoot the Visser's goons, he'll attack. If I don't shoot the boy, then the Council of Thirteen will see for themselves that I'm a host sympathizer. Then he can torture you to death, infest me with a new Yeerk who'll learn all the Animorphs' secrets, and wage open war against Earth.»

Meanwhile, Mercurio whispered, over and over, He's just a child. I can't kill him. He's just a little boy. A little boy with a snake dæmon. I can't kill him. Oh God, oh Jesus, how can I live with myself if I kill him?

«I'm waiting, Visser One,» Visser Three jeered. All around us, both of the Vissers' minions were watching, waiting to see what we would do.

«We have to, Mercurio,» Eva said, cold dread making her numb. «There's no way out of this. If we don't kill him, our secrets are out, this war is over. Marco will die. We have to, Merqui.»

«No,» I said, resolve taking root in me. «No, you don't have to. I'll do it.» I pulled up from Eva's mind a sweet memory, an uncomplicated one, from before she was infested: the first time she went sailing on her own, her hand at the tiller, Mercurio leaping through the water, wind and waves and ship all in perfect balance. I played it back for her in perfect detail, every sense memory of salt spray and cool water. «Stay there, Eva, Mercurio. Stay far, far away from this place.»

Are you sure? Mercurio called to me from the choppy California waters.

«You have a son,» I told Mercurio. «This is too close to your heart. You can't live with it. But no Yeerk ever lives to see their own child. None of us are parents, Mercurio. I can live with this. Let me spare you. For years, Edriss never spared you anything, not one bloody moment. I can spare you. I want to. Please let me. Stay here.»

In his memory, Mercurio took a flying leap, spraying water against the sailboat's hull. Then he dived deep. Both his and Eva's thoughts were on the direction of the wind and the pull of the currents. Far away, where they should be.

I looked Darwin in his black eyes. His dæmon – Daebo, she was called – became a stork beside him and watched me with her long face. Edriss 562 had loved this boy, in her own twisted way. Darwin wouldn't remember her, wouldn't have known before he was infested that he had had an alien for a mother, of sorts. Somewhere behind this calm human face and cool dinosaur beak was a Yeerk desperately hoping someone would rescue him from the boy's corpse in time for him to survive, and a boy desperately hoping that this strange woman would have mercy.

Mercy. What was mercy, in a war? Mercy was letting Karen go free. Mercy was Cassie fighting to defend me when she had every reason to let me die. Someone like Rachel might say that what I was about to do was mercy. Better to die than live a slave, she would say. Personally, I thought that was a lie she and the others told themselves to feel better about all the death they dealt.

I shot the dæmon anyway.

The sound of the gun going off was deafeningly loud in the shuttle bay. Visser Three staggered back in surprise. The goons holding the holocams flinched. But they didn't stop recording. I looked directly into the eyes of the holocams. I said, "May the Kandrona shine and strengthen you, Emperor." The golden miasma that dæmons were made of swirled in the space where Daebo had been. The boy's body was lifeless on the floor, intact. Visser Three's people would be able to retrieve the Yeerk alive, if they acted quickly.

«End the recording,» Visser Three snapped. The recording lights winked out. He glowered at me. «You haven't fooled me, Visser One. I know you're a traitor. Whatever reason you gave the Council, you stole the Andalite Bandits from me to suit your own ends.»

Eva was still lost in the memory of sailing through the Santa Barbara Harbor. She would stay there until we were away from Darwin's corpse. "If you have any evidence that that's true," I said sweetly, "I'm sure the Council would love to hear it."

«There is evidence of your treachery. I will find it.» He gestured imperiously to his goons, who took the child's body away to the shuttle. He followed them into it.

I turned to the Blue Bands. "Clear his departure from shuttle bay." I threw the handgun to the floor with a clatter, turned on my heel, and went back to our private workspace. Once there, I pulled Eva out of her reverie.

«We need to prepare a statement for the Council,» I said.

«A minute,» Eva whispered. «I can smell the gun residue on my hands. I just… need a minute.» So I didn't stop her from crouching down to embrace Mercurio, wrapping his thick barrel shape in her arms. She cried into his feathers. «We killed someone else's baby to save mine. That isn't right. Santa Maria, it isn't right.»

«Not we,» I said. «Me. You weren't there.»

«I agreed with you.»

«That's not the same. I pulled the trigger. I won't let you tell yourself otherwise.»

Mercurio said into Eva's ear, "Thank you, Aftran. Thank you for sparing us."

Suddenly, Eva stiffened and pulled out of the embrace with her dæmon. «Ay, Dios. Madra. The other child. Where is she? Does Visser Three have her?»

«I don't know.»

«We have to contact Bachu and find out,» Eva said. «We can't let the same thing happen to her.»

«I don't think now is a good time to send a suspicious transmission. It'll have to wait, at least a little. But we'll do it, Eva. We'll protect Madra.»