My name is Cassie.

I'd led Aximili, the alien, back to the woods. Back past my house and the barn, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. "That's where my dad works," I explained. "He's a vet—an animal doctor, he takes care of injured animals here."

‹Your father?› he asked.

"Yes."

‹Who lives here? Are there many generations?›

"Just my mom and dad, and me. I mean, this farm has been in my family for hundreds of years—but right now, it's only the three of us."

‹Do many humans live in such households?›

"Well, yeah. I mean, I'm just a kid, you know, I'm still—in school, I don't have a job or anything. So we all live with our parents."

He paused for a moment, taking this in. ‹You're not grown adults? Any of you?›

"No! We're kids."

‹Children.› Aximili settled down on the grass. ‹I see I have much to learn about this planet.›

"We can help you. If there's something you need, that we can bring out here...we'll make it work. Where should I put these?"

‹In your house or in here, wherever is safer,› he said. ‹If your parents are...›

"My parents aren't alien slugs. If that's what you're asking."

‹You cannot be sure!› he protested. ‹You would have no way of knowing.›

"They love me. I know they do."

‹Yeerks can access all of their hosts' memories. Speak exactly the words the host would say. Now, if I leave these here...well, anyone running across them would have me to reckon with anyway, even if I was asleep. They would not leave me be. Yes, I'll keep them with me.› Fully demorphed now, he pressed his foot into the grass. ‹It is edible!›

"That's good, right?"

‹Of course. Is there a source of water nearby?›

"A stream," I pointed. "Want to go see?"

‹Please.›

He followed me deeper into the woods, to the little stream where I held up, still toting the strange objects Rachel had salvaged from the ship. Aximili walked up to the edge, placing one of his forehooves in the water. "Careful," I called, but he didn't move any further, staying there a moment to soak it in.

‹Fresh,› he finally said. ‹This will be livable.›

"Do you sleep outdoors?"

‹Yes. Perhaps I could use a tarpaulin, or something to keep my possessions dry, if need be. But I can make do here.›

"It doesn't rain very often," I explained, as we walked back deeper into the woods. "The water stays fresh, but you'll keep dry if you want to."

‹Good.› His front eyes seemed to rove ahead through the darkness as his stalk eyes looked up, searching for shelter.

I couldn't decide what made him stop where he did, mostly sheltered but in view of a clearing, but he paused, dug his hooves into the grass a little more, and then turned to me. ‹Would you set that down?› He indicated the ball.

I did so. In fact it wasn't a perfect sphere—one side was a little flat, and it balanced there, with the stem or whatever it was poking out of the top.

‹Step back.›

I backed away, still holding the blue box and the black chip.

Then—crack!—Aximili swung his tailblade, and the ball flattened. A pile of dirt spilled out of it—alien soil of some kind, brought across the galaxy to the forest behind our barn.

"Are you practicing something? Is that, like, a fight move?"

‹If only the Yeerks were as easily swept aside as this!› It was too dark to get much of a sense from his eyes—he couldn't really smile—but there was some emotion in his silent voice, even if it was just a tease. ‹No.›

He bent down, awkwardly—it couldn't have been easy to start crouching on four legs—as if trying to transplant it. Was it really a plant, growing inside the spaceship?

"Can I help you?" I asked. "I can get a shovel or something, maybe. Are you trying to plant that?"

‹Please,› he said.

It didn't take long for me to find one—there's a whole pile of stuff in the barn, mostly vet equipment, but you never know what would turn up. I paced back to the woods, hoping I could find my way to where Aximili was staying, and then questioning myself—would it be better if he was somewhere deeply hidden, so no one could find him? No matter, he was there, and wordlessly let me dig a small hole before gently setting the plant inside and starting to pack dirt back in.

‹The fighter that I...crashed,› he finally said. ‹It wasn't mine.›

"What?"

‹Some of the princes, the officers, the most high-ranking warriors? They have—had—› He broke off. ‹Their own fighters. Alongside the GalaxyTree—which was our Dome Ship.›

I didn't understand, but it seemed important to him, so I let him go on.

‹I am just an aristh, a cadet. That was not my own, all this technology belonged to someone else. Some low-rank warrior, who didn't even have a fighter of his own—he did the rituals in common space.›

"Rituals?" I repeated.

‹This is a wish-flower. He would have reverenced it to hope for the safe deliverance of some family member—likely a child, on the homeworld. Perhaps a younger sibling, or a nephew or niece. I don't know whose it was. He must have thought he would have time to come back for it. And I ran ahead. I wanted to fight...›

I remembered the way he'd talked about us—primitive bipeds. If he thought there were any of his own people alive, he'd have wanted to seek them out. Were they all dead, for him to be stuck here with us, and so many regrets? "It's not your fault," I finally said.

‹What?›

"Your...comrades? I don't think they'd want you to carry their deaths, with you. You have...some kind of a purpose, here." Not that I knew the first thing about giving him advice on carrying out an interplanetary war, but it felt like he needed to hear something. "Don't be afraid to move forward."

‹I will fight as long as I can. But if this little wish-flower still lives, I want to plant it here—so something can grow, from where I came. Perhaps this earth is not so different.›

I smiled. "Good for you."

‹All the same, this does not absolve me of my failure. I could—perhaps should have gone down with the ship, left the fighter for someone who could accomplish something with it. But I was selfish, and I stayed alive while they died.›

"But they'd want you to keep fighting, yeah?"

‹It's too late. I can't...›

"You can't change what happened. But that doesn't mean you have to give up."

‹Can't betray their trust any further.› He turned to the blue box, still shining with an unearthly glow. ‹You must understand, there is a reason that we do not share technology with inferior species.›

"Inferior?" I repeated.

Aximili paused. ‹Seerow's Kindness. Seerow was a prince, one of our leaders, one of the first to make contact with the Yeerks. He believed they were a—worthy society, capable of progress, and gave them access to Z-Space technology. Setting them free to tyrannize the galaxy. After that, how could we condone any such transfer of technology?›

He'd rounded on me, as if demanding an answer. I didn't know what to say; he started pacing back and forth. Maybe, I remembered, that was the alien equivalent of junk food, to deal with the stress.

"I don't understand," I finally said. "You don't trust us, humans, because any of us could be these Yeerks, right? So—don't make yourself public, don't share technology. We'll help you hide."

‹Not any of you,› he said. ‹You five...children. You didn't react like Controllers. You, I can trust. So help me.›

"But we're not getting the spaceship back," I trailed off. No, that technology wasn't what he'd meant, not with the way he kept one eye turning towards the box.

‹I would never have considered it, if I hadn't already come here, left the others. I have no reputation left, nor any peers who will judge me for it. But now... I have nothing left to lose.› He glanced up at me. ‹You do. You have your own lives, your own safety, to be concerned with. Not even we draft all children.›

"We don't know how to fight."

‹Espionage, however? I could make clandestine operatives out of even bipeds like you. Or your fellow earthlings.›

"Us? Spies?" I said. It was ridiculous. Absurd.

As crazy as talking to an alien, trying to find a place for him to hide.

Could I answer for the others? For Rachel, my beautiful, athletic best friend? For Tobias or Marco? Jake? We were all just kids, I wanted to say, not space-cadets. But in a world where people were not what they seemed, where aliens lurked behind familiar faces—I wasn't sure I had the right to, anymore.

"We'll come back," I said. "I don't know who, I don't know when. I don't know if we'll want to fight or spy or do anything. But we'll be here for you."

His eyes gave another one of those alien—but somehow not opaque—expressions, almost like a smile. ‹Thank you.›