Yanzin followed James through a set of glass doors, and took a moment to steel himself against the noise and light inside. What are you even afraid of, Yanzin? Nobody here knows what you are. He realised he was still wearing the work name-badge, with 'My name is Yanzin' on it. He took that off and slipped it into a pocket. There you go. Indistinguishable from any human drone having a drink after work.

Like it or not, he was going to have to live surrounded by humans for the rest of his life. Confining himself to a little track running between work, the apartment, the grocery store and integration check-up appointments for all of it wasn't going to work - Arodin and the integration officer were right as far as that. He felt a grim sort of resignation at the prospect of 50 or so years of this. Might as well get used to it.

"So," James said at his elbow. "I can't see anyone… I guess nobody else is here yet. Do you drink? I'll buy you one while we wait."

"No, I don't," Yanzin said. He thought for a few moments. "I'll drink, but I can pay."

James gave him a slightly startled look. "Oh. You don't have to if you don't – I only offered – I mean, I'm driving anyway, so it's not like…"

"It's fine."

"Well, if you're sure."

The staff member at the bar asked for ID, and Yanzin slid his Integration Centre ID card across to them. Name, number, address, age, and the area of the city he was allowed to be in. So much for anonymity, he thought.

The bar tender gave him a slightly contemptuous glance but made no comment as they collected their glasses.

"Come on, we'll wait over here," James said, heading for a collection of stools at a tall table in the corner. After they sat down, he watched as Yanzin sipped his beer dubiously. "You don't drink?"

"Not usually, no. It always struck me as a rather pointless activity." Yanzin swallowed a mouthful of the alcohol and wondered what Arodin saw in it. Not taste, apparently. "My flat mate's a drunk," he said conversationally.

James glanced at the glass and back to him. "Um. I'm sorry, that must be… worrying for you."

"Yeah. I guess so," Yanzin said. "It's a pain in the neck." When exactly had Arodin slipped into being something Yanzin had to worry about, in an odd sort of way? He hadn't been that bad in the first year or so.

"Like I said, don't feel like you have to drink if you don't like it," James said. "The rest of the gang probably will, but it doesn't make much difference to them. They're nice people, you'll get along – I hope you'll get along. You don't have to say much if you don't want."

"Why are you so friendly to me?" Yanzin asked bluntly. "Do you not understand who I am? What I am?"

James ducked his head. "I know what you are," he said. "A yeerk. But a nothlit one."

Something in that statement annoyed Yanzin. "An enemy soldier," he said.

"Well. The war is over," James said. "You live here now."

"Fantastic," Yanzin said. He tapped on the cast with his fingernails. "The war is over."

James looked uncomfortable. "Well. I'm… not like those people. I guess. I mean, like I said, it's peacetime now, and you guys seem to be here to stay. Sooner or later, somebody has to start making overtures of peace to you."

"And that somebody is you, is it?"

James grinned self-deprecatingly. "Yes. That somebody is me. I've always believed that… deep down everybody is more or less a decent person, and if only people would, you know, reach out now and then, we'd probably find a lot of people we used to hate are not so much different to us. All that cheesy stuff." He raised his eyebrows at Yanzin. "Here is the part where you tell me I'm a disgustingly naïve optimist. I'm used to it."

Yanzin shrugged with one shoulder. "Unsurprising, I guess. You're human, you live in one of the most affluent and peaceful nations on your planet. You reached maturity a handful of years ago, and you haven't had to deal with any serious consequences or dangers in those years."

James sighed and rolled his eyes a little. "So how old are you, then? And if you say you're, like, two hundred of 'my years' old, fair warning, I am not going to believe you." He made little finger quotes around 'my years'.

A corner of Yanzin's mouth twitched. "Not that old, no." He did the conversion in his head. "Twenty-seven years, something like that."

James slapped the table with one hand. "Hah! That's not THAT much older than me."

"That's pretty old, as rank and file go," Yanzin pointed out. "You won't find many who are much older. I'm of the second generation out of the home world, and first gen are pretty hard to find these days." He took a swallow of the drink and made a vague gesture with one hand, trying to demonstrate the generations. "We left the home world with three ships full of first gens, right. Then there was a big population jump when we found the hork-bajir world. That's us. Of course, now there are all the little new gens around. The Earth force was lousy with them."

"You were born on the hork-bajir world?" James said, his eyes widening. "What's it like? Do you remember?"

"Do I remember?" Did he remember the first place he'd ever seen apart from the inside of a shipboard tank? Did he remember that world of shocking colours and towering depths that seemed to go on forever, a world whose scale made every world he'd been on after feel unimpressive? "Of course. I had basic training there. I was there for years."

"What's it like?" James repeated, nursing the drink and looking fascinated.

So Yanzin kept drinking, even though the taste didn't seem to get any better, and tried to describe the giant valleys and trees of the hork-bajir home world to James. The taxxon and mak planets he'd found rather boring, so didn't spend long on them before going back to the hork-bajir world.

"Everything there is green," he was saying, a little while later. James' friends seemed to be running late, since there was still no sign of them. "Except the bottom of the canyons. Those are bluer than anything I've seen since. Bluer than shredder fire. Bluer than earth. The world is… brighter."

"Why are the canyon floors blue?" James looked puzzled.

Yanzin shook his head. "I don't know. They just were. They had always been blue. You didn't go into them… you could go days at a time without even touching the ground. One time we went up to the highest part of the canopy…"

"How high's that?"

Yanzin hesitated, uncertain. "Oh - Taller than your skyscrapers. Much taller. I don't know numbers." Essal would have known, but he didn't. "You call these things on Earth trees. Trust me, they're not. I haven't seen a tree worthy of the name the entire time I've been here. Or a forest. Or a canyon, either, come to mention it." He smiled. "The first time I saw the planet from orbit, I… you can't imagine. The valleys are this beautiful dark rich green, and it's like all this – life – is just tucked away into little hollows safe inside the greyness. A crevice that stretches across half the diameter of the whole world."

"Wow," James sighed, his chin on one hand. "The Hork-bajir world sounds incredible. I wish I could go to another planet some time. Maybe there'll be tourism flights in a few years, what do you think?"

"Mm," Yanzin said, noncommittally. He looked down. "You know, it… doesn't necessarily all look like that anymore. The mines tore some of it up before I left, and for all I know they kept going." The thought made him more than a little annoyed with himself.

"Oh." James looked saddened. "I hope there's still enough left. It must be awful for the hork-bajir."

"Well, quantum plague did for a lot of them, and some of the rest are staying here, so even if it's mostly gone they'll probably still all fit," Yanzin said, turning away.

James didn't respond to that. He cleared his throat after a moment. "Hearing about other planets and other species is so interesting," he said. "I want to take a course on it next semester, if I have room."

"Is that why you keep hanging around me?" Yanzin said bluntly. He looked sideways at James. "I'm some sort of novelty to you, aren't I? That's it." That made a lot more sense, now.

"No!" James protested. "I mean – when you put it like that it sounds awful."

Yanzin smirked into his glass. "Well, what does that tell you?"

"I don't – no, look, that's not why I'm here." He looked upset. "I didn't – look, okay, I haven't been hanging around you. I just – you seem like you need some friends. That's all. I asked you to come because you seem so lonely. I'm trying to help."

"Why?" Yanzin said. "Why do you care?"

"Maybe – maybe I just want to reduce a little bit of the suffering in the world," James said. "It's not like it costs me anything."

Yanzin snorted. "It always costs you something," he said. "It's costing you time. Effort. The chance you might get your head kicked in. You have no idea, do you?"

Yanzin became aware that the noise level in the bar was rising and turned around to look for the source. There was a small television in the corner of the room, and someone had turned the volume up. A fanfare of music made the people fall quiet and turn.

Oh, no, Yanzin thought when he saw the flags, the crowds of people on the TV, the stage.

"Oh, it's the anniversary service," James said from beside him. "Looks like it's started already. I think there's a whole memorial program on TV tonight."

A young man with brown hair was walking across the stage. Broad-shouldered and in his early twenties, utterly ordinary.

A wave of cool light-headedness seemed to pass over Yanzin, leaving him feeling distant and hyper-focused but faintly sick. He could have turned his gaze away from the television screen but he didn't.

"This anniversary marks the day we fought off a foe more deadly, more vicious, and more ruthless than any humanity has faced before," the young man said. "I know… as much as any of you… what facing them cost us. The things they took from us." For an instant he stared at the podium in front of him, and his face, grave before, looked haggard. The cameras cut to a close up on his face as he looked up. "But we won. And what we – "

Him. Again. Yanzin wondered, a little manically, if someone was following Yanzin around making sure that everywhere he turned today he saw that human.

"Jake Berenson. He's the one you freaked out about back at work. Isn't he?" A note of doubt crept into James' voice.

Yanzin's hand tightened on the glass, and he contemplated whether or not it'd break on James' face.

"Yeah. That's him," he said instead. "Jake the Yeerk Killer." He lifted his glass to James in a sarcastic toast, and downed a mouthful. Liquid slopped around the corners of his mouth; maybe he wasn't as coordinated as he should have been. He swiped at it with the heel of his hand.

James hadn't drunk. "I never realised how that sounded," he said in a hushed voice. "People don't call him that very often."

"We do," Yanzin said. "He proved himself very good at it." The rest of the room had fallen mostly silent. People were standing, watching the screen with something akin to reverence. Like they were observing a minute's silence or attending a funeral.

"… pay tribute to those who lost their lives in defence of our most …"

"And now I'm really not sure it's a good idea for you to be drinking," James said quietly, looking at Yanzin's glass. "Especially if you don't usually drink a lot. How drunk are you?"

"… the victims of the most abominable…"

"I don't know," Yanzin confessed. He spoke loudly, trying to drown out the TV. "How do you know if it's working?"

"You look kinda drunk to me. Maybe I shouldn't have suggested you come..."

Yanzin shrugged with one shoulder. "Bit late for that."

"Shut up," someone hissed at them. "Have some respect."

Yanzin put the glass down, carefully. His fingers suddenly seemed thick and clumsy.

"I will pay your dead," he said slowly and loudly, "The same respect that you pay mine." He turned around and half-slid off the stool. Somehow his hands had made fists.

"Oh God," he heard James mutter from behind him.

Yanzin raised his eyes to meet the gaze of the rest of the room. The people close enough to catch what he'd said were muttering and staring; he couldn't tell who'd spoken. Outside that ring a few gave him a disapproving or curious glance.

If Yanzin had felt surrounded before, in the store, it was a thousand times worse now. But he found that he didn't care. All his instincts were wailing at him like emergency sirens, and he didn't care. He just did. Not. Care.

He looked around for the person who'd told him to have respect, but he couldn't see them.

"…celebration of the freedoms their sacrifice has…"

"Who said that?" he asked, raising his voice over the muttering. "Who thinks I'm not being respectful enough of Jake Berenson's speech?"

The disturbance was spreading. Someone at the front of the room asked what was going on over there.

"One of those slugs," someone said, barely louder than regular conversation. "Get out of here. Not the fucking time."

"Why not?" Yanzin said. "You people picked the date, aren't we memorialising here?" He just wanted to hurt somebody, to lash out and feel like he was making an impact on someone, anyone. "Isn't this international 'give speeches about the Animorphs' day? How about this? Jake Berenson is a pawn of the andalites who's too stupid to see it. He's just as bloodthirsty and violent as any other wannabe military hero, but he covers it over with talking about peace, and you all buy it and it makes me fucking sick."

"Alright, that's enough, I think," he heard from behind him. He turned to see a male human, of a height with Yanzin but broader, standing up from a nearby table. "You should leave."

"You all think you're so much better, don't you?" Yanzin spat. "No wonder you're the andalites' precious little pets now. You're just like them, only without the firepower to back up your arrogance. They're in love with playing saviour too. You think you won this war with shiny clean hands, don't you? Don't you?"

The tall human was manoeuvring around tables and chairs. Yanzin set his feet firmly. "You know what I should do? You know what I –"

He cut off as the stranger grabbed his good arm. Yanzin threw his hand off and swung at him, off balance because of the cast. Cries arose from the people around him.

Quicker than Yanzin could react, the stranger had his arm again, pulling him further off balance and turning him around. He twisted Yanzin's good arm behind his back, efficiently, and Yanzin was fully expecting things to get worse from there. But the human just gripped him very firmly and began to tow him towards the glass doors that lead outside.

Yanzin kicked and struggled, and once again found that the alcohol seemed to have stolen some of his fine motor control. He managed to hit the human with his cast. "Let go," he snarled. "Don't fucking touch me, you – you're no better than animals, any of you, fucking hosts. We should have melted this planet to glass from fucking orbit when we had the chance!"

"Sorry," the stranger said to a table of people as he shoved Yanzin past. A couple of drinks were knocked over. "Really sorry. Shut up."

"Make me, host!" Yanzin braced, and managed to hook a leg around the stranger's, trying to trip him up.

The human swore and stumbled, but kept his balance. "Trust me, I'm tempted," he said. He grabbed the casted arm, too, and twisted it back. The pain was a sharp bolt through Yanzin, but it still seemed almost distant.

Somebody else must have opened the door, because the next thing Yanzin knew he was outside, the air cold and damp against his face. They went a few more steps outside and around a corner, and then he was shoved firmly away. He pitched forward onto his face. He was expecting a boot in the ribs, but he didn't get one.

"You need to go back to wherever you call a home and sober up," the human told him. "Consider yourself lucky."

"Lucky? Lucky?" Yanzin gave up on standing and just knelt on the ground, his head hanging. "If one… more…. human tells me how fucking lucky I am, I'm going to get my hands on a weapon and blow all of you to little pieces of floating ash, I swear I'll-"

"Enough. Go home. Or stick around to see the police someone probably just called on you, I don't care."

"Lucky! Look at how shaghran lucky I am, everybody else is fucking dead but here I am! I get this – this miserable planet, and I get a fake body, and I get this dapsen ID card – " He fumbled to get his wallet from his pocket, his vision blurred by tears he hadn't realised were welling up. He pulled the ID card out and threw it as far away as he could. The rest of the cards followed, and then the wallet. Then his name badge, with the obnoxiously cheerful logo.

It was pathetic and he knew it.

"Is he your friend?" he heard from behind him. James' voice answered.

"Um. Not really. Kinda. Yeah, I guess so." A pause, and then a defensive statement. "I'm human. I'm not a yeerk. He just works with me."

"Right, well, can he be your problem now? Because he's sure as hell not mine."

"Go home," Yanzin whispered. "R-right. Go home."

Trouble was, 'home' was a nebulous concept. Home wasn't the homeworld. Home wasn't the Empire. Home was a little bit the Hork-bajir world, and a little bit the inside of a spaceship. Mostly home was a yeerk pool, any yeerk pool, and Trinir and Essal still being alive.