Jake

The Hork-Bajir know how to throw a party. I already knew that from the hralathu-ka, the settling party, they threw for Marco and Diamanta. We could hear the drumming from a long way off. The party was mostly up in the trees, of course, but the human new-frees were hanging out at ground level, passing around bowls of berries and bags of cookies the Chee had brought in. The guy named Robin, who seemed to have become the leader of the Peace Movement folks in the valley, waved at us as we came up and offered us snacks. I waved back at him, but I didn't feel like being leader Jake again just yet. Marco and Rachel took him up on it. Everyone else moved on. I could see that Elgat Kar was helping Tom get up on a low bough so he could be a little closer to the action in the trees.

I noticed a Hork-Bajir child hanging by her tail from a branch to talk to two kids who had to be sisters, by their look. "My mama marriage day!" the little Hork-Bajir girl said.

The little sister had been spinning her rolled-up armadillo dæmon around in the dirt. She looked up and said, "Is there cake?"

"What is cake?" the Hork-Bajir kid said.

The older sister's dæmon became a bullfrog so his mouth could gape wide open. The girl said, wide-eyed, "You don't know what cake is?"

Merlyse and I looked at each other and smiled. She became a gyrfalcon, flew up to a branch I could climb to, and waited for me to join her. It was much less scary to climb a big tree than when I was a kid, now that I could turn into a bird any time, or morph away a broken leg. On his bough down and to my left, Tom was acquiring Elgat. Above me, Hork-Bajir were laughing in their weird raspy way and flying through the air way too fast for anyone that big. I caught sight of Cassie talking to Ket Halpak on a branch above me. Quincy was hanging upside down from a twig. It was really cute. I wanted badly to talk to her, but I had no idea what to say.

"Come on, you coward," Merlyse muttered, and flew up to the branch next to Cassie, straining the edge of our range. Quincy squeaked hello at Merl, and I sighed and started climbing.

When I swung up next to Cassie, she smiled and said, "Ket just told me she's going to have a baby soon. She's already picked a name. Franaj."

It was weird to hear just one name for a baby, but since it wouldn't have a dæmon, it did make sense. "Wow. So Toby's going to be a big sister."

Ket twisted her neck to look up and around at a pair of Hork-Bajir who were swinging around the trees to the drum music like acrobats on the high bars. "New kalashi," Ket said with a huge grin. "Meret and Ghat married today."

I blurted out, "So it's a gay wedding?"

Cassie laughed. Ket tilted her head at me. "What is gay?"

I swear I was going to come up with an answer to that eventually, but Cassie took pity on me and said, "There are some men who prefer to be with other men, and some women who prefer to be with other women. We call them gay," while Merlyse hid her head under her wing, embarrassed for me.

Ket considered this. "Ghat have husband, Dref, and wife, Meret. Is gay?"

While my brain tried to process that, Cassie said, "Wait, so was this a three-way wedding today?"

Ket laughed. "No! Ghat marry Dref before. In cage, in Yeerk Pool. Now Ghat marry Meret."

"Won't Dref get jealous?" I said.

Ket tilted her head at me. "What is jealous?"

Merlyse started laughing, then I joined in. I shook my head. "The Hork-Bajir are so cool. You have it all figured out, don't you?"

Cassie and Quincy looked at each other. He pricked his ears at me. Cassie raised her eyebrows and said, "You think it's cool, huh? That Ghat has a husband and a wife?"

I blushed. "I think it's cool that they can do stuff like that without worrying they'll get divorced over it, yeah."

Ket looked up. "Dance open now. Ket will join."

I followed her gaze up. Sure enough, other Hork-Bajir had joined the new couple, the branches groaning and sighing as Hork-Bajir caught them with hands and tails, then leapt away again. Cassie said, "Have fun, Ket!" and we watched as Ket swung long, slow arcs beneath the newlyweds.

Merlyse was looking at Quincy, but I couldn't look at Cassie. I kicked my feet back and forth. Finally, Cassie said softly, "The Chee have been watching my house. Mom came home with a bunch of enforcer types from the Sharing. She's definitely one of them."

I stared at my beat-up sneakers. "Cassie, I am so sorry. If I had explained things to my parents faster – if I had split us up into two teams instead of all going together – or if we'd gotten started without waiting for Loren and – "

"Look at me, Jake." I did. Cassie was angry. I hadn't expected that. "It was my choice to put my family last. I chose it because it was the right thing to do. Don't you dare make this all about you. My God, I've talked to my dad, and even he understands what I did better than you do, and it's the love of his life we're talking about here."

"Okay," I said. "Okay." I held out my hand, and Merlyse became a snow bunting and hopped into my palm. "I know what it's like. Wondering what they're going through. Imagining what it'll be like when you get them back. How fucking scared you get, every minute you remember what's happening to them right now."

"Yeah. I know you do. I… I guess I'm the only one who never had anyone in my family tied up in this war. And now it's my turn." Quincy flew to Cassie's shoulder. "I should find my dad. I don't want to leave him alone too much."

I studied her face. I was no Cassie, but I could tell she was a little too calm about this. Maybe she was cracking up or something and trying to hide it from me. I'd have to keep an eye on her. "I'll come with you?" I said.

"Sure."

I didn't land right, when I jumped off the last branch to the ground, and twisted my ankle, badly. I gritted my teeth against the pain, and instinctively started morphing tiger. I bulked up, my mouth went thick with teeth, and my tongue felt rough against the roof of my mouth. Cassie cleared her throat. I turned around and realized my parents and Cassie's dad were right there, staring at me. I didn't know how I could have missed Emeraude. Merlyse, from a branch overhead, said, "Uh, sorry guys, hang on a sec," and I continued the morph until the ligament set, then reversed it.

Dad looked down at my foot and said, "That is the most remarkable medical technology I ever…" His eyes glazed over, like he was imagining all of the things he could cure if he had the blue box.

Mom said, "Do you do that every time you get hurt?"

"If it's safe to, yeah," I said. "I've kind of gotten used to it, I guess."

My parents shook their heads. Tz'irah bent down and whispered something to Malachet. I was blushing again. Quincy and Emeraude were whispering to each other, too, leaving me and Merlyse standing there awkwardly. Finally, Mom nodded toward the Peace Movement hosts and said, "Who are they? They seem to know what's going on around here."

I looked at Cassie, because she would be better than me at explaining what the Peace Movement was, but she was still distracted with her dad. "They, um, they're former Controllers. But they kinda lucked out, I guess. They got infested with Yeerks from the Peace Movement. That's a group of Yeerks who believe that they shouldn't go around invading planets and conquering people."

Mom said, "There are Yeerks who…"

I shrugged. "Yeah. Actually, it's thanks to one of those Yeerks we were able to get you out in time. She gave us a tip that the Yeerks were close to figuring out who we are, and we needed to evacuate you." I turned toward the Peace Movement people gathered around the fire pit and gestured for my parents to follow. "Come on. I'll introduce you. It's getting dark anyway. It'll be nicer by the fire." I didn't want my parents to end up like Tom, friendless in the valley because they couldn't stand talking to people who'd gotten along with Peace Movement Yeerks.

The Peace Movement folks were sorted roughly by age. The little kids were playing with two small Hork-Bajir girls. I introduced my parents to Robin, Jamal, and Julie and let them hang out with the adults. The teenagers, Melissa, Miguel, and Ruby, were in a little knot under a tree, where a teenage Hork-Bajir clung to a branch and listened to their conversation with interest, chiming in with a word or two from time to time. I stopped, said hi, and listened for a little while. They were talking about the living conditions in the human section of the valley. They asked me if I could bring in books or something, because they got pretty bored sometimes. I told them I'd see what I could do, and moved on.

When I was out of earshot of the new-frees, the teenage Hork-Bajir thought-spoke to me, «What's wrong, Jake? Don't recognize your own brother?»

I froze in my tracks. Merl became a snowy owl and flew up to Tom's branch. "Tom!" she hissed. "You can't just morph to get away from the problems you made with those people! Morphing is serious shit, not a fucking cheat code to get out of awkward social situations!"

Tom retreated from the new-free teenagers on his branch. «I don't know if I can make it right. How can it ever be right between me and people who love Yeerks?»

"Maybe it can't be right," Merl said. "That's your business. But that means you can't hang out with them as a Hork-Bajir if they wouldn't let you do it as a human."

«Fine,» Delareyne said, and leapt further up into the trees.

"Wait!" Merl called, but he was gone. She flew back to my shoulder. "I didn't even get to ask how he liked Hork-Bajir morph."

I clutched at my hair. "I can't believe he's had the morphing power for like an hour and he's already fucking it up."

"I dunno, I kind of can," Merlyse said darkly. "It's not like we gave him the Uncle Ben speech about great power and great responsibility first."

"Dammit," I said, pacing around the outer edge of the firelight. "Should we have done that?"

"Hey," Merlyse whispered in my ear. "Don't look, but Cassie and Rachel are having some kind of secret head-to-head to your left."

"Don't eavesdrop on Cassie, it's rude," I whispered back.

"I'm not eavesdropping! I just noticed they're having some kind of secret talk. Owl eyes and all that. She's probably just talking to Rachel about her mom. Oh! Now Loren is coming. I think she wants to talk to us."

"Why am I suddenly Mr. Popular?"

"Well, you don't get to be Anonymous High School Student #57 anymore," Merl said. "It's General Jake full-time now."

I clamped down on my swearing so Loren and Jaxom wouldn't get an earful. I could see them now, too. Loren had a quiet, focused look on her face, and I knew that Merlyse was right: it was time to be General Jake.

"Hi, Jake," Loren said. "I'm happy to see your parents made it here okay. Do you have a minute?"

I suppressed a heavy sigh. "Sure. What's up?"

"I have a mission I want to do with Ax and Tobias," Loren said, "but I want to be smart about it." Jaxom tilted his head, and the firelight shone in his black eyes. "Tell me what you think of my plan."

Tobias

It was getting dark at the wedding party. I watched the wedding guests gather in the trees to watch the hrala flow through Kref Magh in the moonlight, and thought about morphing Hork-Bajir so I could join them. But then there were human and Andalite footsteps below me, and I looked down and saw Ax and Loren dimly, by the last red glow of the sun into the valley. I don't want to hear anything they have to say to me, Elhariel said darkly, and I spread my wings to fly further up into the trees.

"Wait," Loren called up to me. "Tobias, I need your help."

She means it, Elhariel, I thought. I have to at least listen. I floated down to a lower branch and tilted my head. I wasn't going to speak until I was sure my words wouldn't be turned against me.

"I need both of you," Loren said, looking back and forth between me and Ax. "And I'm sorry, but it's urgent. I don't have time for us all to make up first. But I'm ready to put it all aside for now." Lines of pain creased around her eyes. "You heard about what Eva and Aftran did. That program to recruit people with disabilities as hosts. Now that the Yeerks know who I am, my friends, my blind friends, are more of a target than ever. Most of them are probably taken by now. But if there's any left free, I need to warn them. I need to tell them to stay away, and to spread the word that the Sharing doesn't have our best interests at heart."

«And if you are wrong about who is taken and who is not?» Ax said.

"That's why I need you," Loren said. "I talked to Jake about this. He said I can go ahead as long as we do enough surveillance that we're pretty sure what's going on. And you'll be right there as backup when I talk to them, in case it's a trap. If you're willing to do it, that is."

Why should you help her when she won't accept you and thinks you're broken? Elhariel wondered.

«What do you think this will do to the Sharing's efforts?» Ax said.

"Maybe it'll keep them from getting as many disabled hosts as they wanted," Loren said. "But even if it doesn't… I wouldn't trade having you two as family for anything in the world. But before you found me, they were all the family I had." She wiped away tears with the back of her hand. "When everyone else thought I was ugly or useless or a burden, they told me I was worth something. They taught me I could have a life, even after everything the accident took from me. This is the least I can do for them, after all the time I spent lying to them and pushing them away."

I remembered some flashes from when I infested Loren: being loved, supported, known by her blind friends. It was wrong that I knew these things, as Loren had said to me in that argument I could never forget. But I couldn't un-know them. And it meant that I understood. «Okay. If we call a truce – I'll help.»

«I will help also,» Ax said.

"Thank you," Loren said. "I thought – I thought we could go looking for Hork-Bajir tomorrow, like we're all supposed to be doing now, and then at night morph owl and start watching my low-vision support group."

«All right,» I said cautiously. I was worried the truce might not last if we spent all day together, but maybe it would be a good test run for whether we could do this side mission without problems, too. «See you tomorrow.»

As I spread my wings for takeoff, I saw very dimly that glazed over silence between Loren and Ax that meant Ax was telling her something in private thought-speech. Suddenly the appeal of hrala-watching with the Hork-Bajir crumbled to ash. Everyone in the valley was spending this evening with their family. Except for me.

Then let's leave the valley, Elhariel said suddenly. There are people who want us there. The Chee must have mentioned like three times that the rogue Yeerks want to talk to us.

And now I don't have to lie to them that I'm an Andalite, I thought. I morphed owl, then took off and looked for a Chee to talk to. I saw the glint of moonlight on chrome as a Chee did some last-minute improvements on the new yurt, though without the hologram I couldn't tell which one it was. «Hey,» I said. «Sorry to interrupt. Could you check on the CheeNet if now is a good time to visit the Aftran Plisam Pool?»

The Chee paused, then said, "Bachu says the Pool never sleeps. Come on over."

«Could you ask her to invite Illim and Tidwell? I'm about to have a big talk with the Pool, and they might as well be there for this.»

The Chee nodded, then went back to work. I flew through the night to Bachu's house. When I tapped at an upper-story window, she let me in. Her hologram was down. "I'm covering Tidwell's car," she explained. "A lot of Controllers are under close scrutiny right now. I don't want to draw a connection between him and this house."

I demorphed and rode to the basement perched on her arm. Tidwell stood beside the Yeerk Pool, his dæmon's tank open, fiddling with his cuffs as if he were thinking about taking a swim. "Noorlin," he said when he saw me – or maybe it was Illim. He knew I was the one who always morphed red-tail. His eyes were wide. He licked his lips, took a quick breath. "Is it true? The rumors I've heard today?"

I broadcast my thought-speech. The Aftran Plisam Pool deserved answers, too. «The rumors are true, Illim. The guerilla band you call the Andalite bandits… we're actually human. All of us except one. We call ourselves Animorphs.»

"Animorphs. Guardians of the Galaxy," Tidwell murmured. His face was pale. "You're children, aren't you? Teenagers. Do I know you?"

«You probably haven't heard of me,» I said, this time in private thought-speech. «Unless you've heard of a missing kid called Tobias Calladan and Elhariel.»

"Of course I've heard of you," Tidwell said. Horrifyingly, he looked like he was about to cry. "Do you think any teacher can just… not notice when a kid goes missing? We have pictures of you up in the teachers' lounge. We have pictures of all the kids in the school system who've gone missing in the last five years. Taylor Dejean and Marling – well, both of us know what happened to her, I think. David Finlay and Kirianor." I couldn't help rucking my feathers up at that. I've seen Amber Alerts before, and the thought of one of those about Taylor or David made me sick. "And you. Some of the teachers noticed – I mean, they thought the worst had happened to you. But you're alive. You…" He trailed off, staring right through me. I felt totally exposed. It nauseated me to think that Tidwell had pitied some grainy photo of me on a bulletin board for years.

Tidwell's face went firm, and I got the feeling that Illim was behind the wheel now. I was relieved. Illim, at least, was too alien to really understand how fucked up this all was. He gestured to the Pool. "You might as well go in, if you're used to morphing Yoort. My people need to talk to you. Now more than ever, Tobias Calladan and Elhariel."

«Um,» I said. «I don't speak Yeerk sonar language or whatever.»

"That's all right," Illim said. "We have a different form of communication. Palp to palp, we call it. It's a direct transfer. Images, feelings, impressions of memories."

Like when Elfangor spoke to us at the construction site, Elhariel said. Images of the Yeerks. Those weird memories about how the morphing power works. The courage. More and more about Iskoort society makes sense.

I still don't get why the Lego look, I thought, but I glided from Bachu's arm to the edge of the Pool. I focused on the Yoort DNA inside me, and my eyes went dark in a rush of slime.

"Um," Tidwell said. "That's not how morphing is supposed to work, right?"

«I'm kind of an exception,» I said. «It's a long, weird story. Like most things that have ever happened to the Animorphs.»

Here's the thing. I've been in the Empire's big Yeerk Pool before, even if it was only for a few minutes. I've been in the Yoort pool system on Garzh, even if it was only for a little longer than that. The Aftran Plisam Pool wasn't like either of those. Unlike the Yoort pool system, it was very plain. But it was way too small to be anything like the Yeerk Pool. In a weird, totally alien way, it reminded me of recess, when I was living with my aunt and went to a worse school. The schoolyard was just broken-up blacktop with weeds coming up through the cracks, but when it was time for recess, everyone was so glad not to be cooped up in the gray old building anymore that they rushed all over that schoolyard like it was Wonderland. It was kind of sweet and kind of sad at the same time.

Something changed in the water – maybe Illim said something, or maybe the current shifted to carry my strange Yoort scent through the Pool – and the Yeerks gathered around me. My skin vibrated with hundreds of sonar clicks bouncing off it. The water around me became close and turbulent. When I clicked my sonar back at the gathering crowd, their larger Yeerk bodies made me feel like I was surrounded by giants, all grasping for me with their palps. I shrank back against the wall, surrounded by a great nonsense of sonar song and electrical patterns.

A pair of palps made contact with mine. I felt slick scales against the rough pad of a thumb, the ache in my right arm at the end of the day from dragging the fish tank around. It was strangely touching that Illim identified himself to me through Tidwell's most intimate experiences. It didn't feel so crowded in the Aftran Plisam Pool anymore, though I couldn't say whether it was because the Yeerks had backed off, or because I'd settled into the Yoort instincts of safety in the pool, or because it all suddenly seemed so distant compared to the closeness of Yeerk and Yoort with a host.

Illim disengaged. I said to the Pool at large, «My name is Tobias Calladan. My dæmon is a European storm-petrel named Elhariel. I'm an Animorph. I know we lied to you all about being Andalites. I can't apologize for that. Until today, our anonymity protected us. We're just human kids. Teenagers. If any word had gotten to the Empire about that – well. We had advance warning from Aftran that we'd been burned, and even then, one of the Animorphs, Cassie, lost her mom. We didn't evacuate her in time, and she was taken. Another Animorph, Rachel… I guess her dad is lost, too. He doesn't live in California, so we couldn't get to him. And now any time we appear as human in public, we're in danger. So we had to lie about that. But now the Empire knows about us, so we don't have to lie anymore.

«I didn't lie about anything I told you that day when… well, you know. When you first came here, to the Aftran Plisam Pool. You really do have broken roots. I still think you can fix them by doing what I did with Rachel. I wasn't lying about that, either. So now you know that some humans are okay with morphing Yeerks and doing the whole… mind-melding thing. Um. You can do your palp to palp thing to ask me questions, but one at a time, please? And I might have to stop if it gets to be too much.»

Illim carefully shepherded one Yeerk forward out of the press. I trusted him to choose someone who wouldn't be rude or stupid, so I touched palps to the stranger's. I caught the harsh ring of angry thought-speech, and an image of an Andalite that was half actual image, half what an Andalite would look like to sonar clicks if one submerged in a Yeerk Pool – not that that would ever happen. I realized the Yeerk was asking me about Ax, and his anger at me for my admission about me and Rachel. Pain and loneliness stabbed through me. There was an answering soothing pressure, like a hot shower with good water pressure, and I remembered that I was still palp-to-palp with the strange Yeerk. It had felt my pain over Ax, and it was trying to make me feel better. I sent back what I hoped was something like "thank you" and disengaged.

«Okay. Whoever that was asked me about the Andalite who yelled at me about… I need a better word than mind-melding. Isking? You've all heard the story about Garzh and the Iskoort, you know what I mean by that. Yeah, let's call it Isking. I'd forgotten that was public thought-speech, when he yelled at me about Isking with Rachel. I guess I can see why that would be important to you guys. This is, um. Not really gonna be fun for any of us to talk about. But Ax is the only real Andalite in our little group. And he's super not okay with the Isking. He thinks I – I'm violating Rachel. And I could never do that to her. All of you who had hosts get that, right? You could never hurt them like that, right?»

I don't understand Yeerk language. But there was some kind of static in the water that felt like agreement.

«Yeah. And it's especially rough because… man, this is even weirder to explain to you guys than it was to explain to the Animorphs. Ax is my uncle. His name is really Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. His brother – my father – is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Years and years ago, he ran away from the war and used the morphing technology to become human and… well, the rest is history. Me. Morphing is weird like that. I know you guys hate him. He killed a lot of Yeerks. Well, so have I. I'm sorry about that. I really am. But who cares whether I'm sorry? Everyone I killed is still dead. Everyone my father killed is still dead. If anything I've done has made that better, well, then you're better at forgiving me than I am at forgiving myself.» I paused. «Anything else?»

The Yeerks seemed to be passing something to each other, palp-to-palp, like chain mail for feelings. Finally, it got passed to Illim, and he passed it to me.

It was gratitude. Gratitude that the son of Beast Elfangor could learn the ways of Yeerks, and even feel sorry for killing them in a war to defend my planet. Hope that even someone who had been born from the bloodiest of this war could wish for something better.

«Okay,» I whispered. «Thanks. I think that's enough for one day.»

As I demorphed, some part of me wished that Ax and Loren could have been there with me, to feel how strange and awe-inspiring it was, to be in that Pool surrounded by alien giants who just wanted some way to understand me. But the voice of reason, whose name was Elhariel, told me they couldn't possibly have found the otherworldly beauty in it.