(Being trapped in eagle form might not be the worst thing facing Rachel,) Tobias said, sounding as morose as Jake had ever heard him.

(Oh yeah, you would think that!) Marco sneered. (Maybe Rachel doesn't want to spend the rest of her life eating mice and sleeping in trees like you, Tobias!)

(That's not what I meant,) Tobias snapped. (I meant that she might be dead. Or the morph she's in might be fatally injured.)

(Ax was alive, I'm sure of that,) Cassie said, seeming only marginally better off than the rest of them; Jake honestly didn't blame her, but now wasn't the time for that kind of thing.

(All right, calm down everyone. We're all on-edge here, but nothing's going to be resolved if we're at each other's throats,) he said; the words belonged to either Shara's father or Grant Goddard, he didn't know which and for the moment he didn't really care.

(Didn't any of this show up when you researched this lunatic's mansion?) Marco demanded, sounding furious.

(I don't think any of it would have even if I did,) he said, already trying to think of a plan.

There had to be a way for him to save the others, some way that he hadn't thought of as yet; some way that would make it possible for him to break open the defenses surrounding the Fenestre mansion. But Marco and Tobias were at each other's throats again, and Cassie was starting to moan about how now that the Yeerks had Rachel and Shara, it was only a matter of time until they found out about the rest of the Animorphs. How it was only a matter of time until the Yeerks found their parents.

He couldn't think with all of these distractions, and as much as he hated to admit it, there was a part of him that didn't want to. After all, he'd been the one to make the call to abandon three of his own people in enemy territory. He'd been the one so determined to find out what was going on with Fenestre that he'd been willing to risk his fellow Animorphs' – his friends – lives in a gambit to find that information.

He was the one who'd let himself be distracted from important research just because his mother wanted to have dinner together; who the hell was he to be making plans right now?

(I don't know what to do,) he said softly, not knowing if he'd projected the thought or not.

At least, not until Tobias responded. (What?)

(Tick-tock, tick-tock,) Marco all but snarled. (We need some kind of a plan. Time is running out!)

(Yes, well I'm trying to think of one, but I'm running into a lot of dead-ends at the moment, all right?) he shot back.

(Don't give me that crap,) Marco sneered. (You got us into this mess, now get us out!)

(Leave him alone,) Cassie said, and he sighed as well as a falcon could.

He'd wanted to snap at Marco for that, maybe demand that he come up with a plan if he thought it was so easy; but that would have only annoyed Marco, and the two of them would have likely gotten into some sort of a fight. And that wasn't something any of them could afford right now.

(We... we could try using cockroach morphs,) Cassie said, sounding about as uncertain as he'd ever heard her. He tried not to blame himself for that, but that didn't change the fact that he was responsible for it. (Crawl into the mansion, and-)

(No time,) Marco cut in. (We'd have to morph way outside the outer perimeter fence, then get all the way up the hill; it's hundreds of yards, at least. Besides, they're Controllers in there. They'll be ready for us this time.)

(No,) Jake said softly, having put together what he'd seen at the mansion with the usual tactics the Yeerks seemed so fond of and coming up short.

(No what?) Tobias demanded.

(They aren't Controllers,) he continued, absolutely sure now of this, one point. (Any time we've ever gone after the Yeerks, they may have used a lot of human-Controllers, but they always had Hork-Bajir backing them up. And, even Taxxons in some cases. There were no Hork-Bajir in that fight. And every one of them used ordinary guns, like any you could find here on Earth; not a Dracon beam in sight. Not to mention the dogs; Yeerks would never use dogs. They don't trust animals, since they know about the morphing and all.)

(Okay, so what kind of a human being would tell his guards to shoot at birds?) Marco demanded, sounding like he was trying but failing to keep a lid on his temper.

(I don't know,) Jake admitted. (But these guys were humans. Shara, Rachel and Ax may not know that, and I think we all remember just what Shara does to people she thinks are dangerous,) he said, remembering the corpses of the guards they had left behind at Ocean World. He wondered, sometimes, if their bodies had ever been found, but he didn't think he'd ever know. Sometimes, though, he didn't want to know. (We have to get them out of there, and we don't have time to be subtle.)

(They still have guns,) Cassie pointed out reasonably. (They might not have Dracon beams, or squads of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, but they still have guns, and fences. And probably some big, thick doors.)

(Yeah, they do,) Jake conceded. (And, we don't have any morphs between us that are fast enough, or tough enough to bust into that place without getting shot up.) Yeah, we don't have any morphs that could do that, but not all of us need them, he mused, slanting a glance at Slade. Still, while the older boy wasn't at all likely to complain about being asked to do something like that on his own, it wouldn't have been fair for Jake to ask him to. He was the one who'd gotten his friends into this fix, and just asking someone to get them out of it – no matter how powerful that someone was – wouldn't be right. (But, I have an idea. How far are we from The Gardens?)