"Swim unknown currents and fear not where the Kandrona does not shine." – Yeerkish blessing over newborns
"Cassie?" Jake said. Merlyse flitted over as a hummingbird and ran her bill through Quincy's fur. "What happened? Where's Delia?"
I flushed a little at the contact. "Aftran doesn't know. She bailed while the Howler was running away with her."
Marco groaned. "Does she have anything that can help us? That Howler kicked our sorry butts!"
"Yeah," I said.
«What are you going to tell them?» Aftran said. «That I made some helpful new Yeerk friends?»
«Eventually. Just not now. First let's rescue Delia, then we deal with the whole Yoort thing.» Out loud, I said, "Howlers can't attack Iskoort. It's part of the rules. When the Howler was shooting at us, it deliberately avoided hitting any of the bystanders."
"How is that supposed to help?" Rachel asked. "And why can't they? Why would Crayak care?"
"The Ellimist talks about this like it's a giant game between him and Crayak," said Jake. "Every game has rules. We can use that. We can morph Iskoort, or lose them in a big crowd."
«We need to find out where they're keeping Delia,» Tobias said.
"Yeah, and do what? Waltz in to grab her and get puréed?" Marco, of course.
"Morph Iskoort," I said. "They can't do anything to stop us if we're Iskoort."
"They could also follow us to wherever we take her," Jake said.
"Yes, but then we'll have Delia back," Aftran said. "She can project holograms to lose the Howlers."
"We can't be on the defense forever," Rachel said.
"I like our chances better after we see them at their base camp, or wherever they've taken Delia," Jake said. "We need to learn more about how they operate."
"So where have they taken her?" Rachel said. Abineng tossed his head impatiently.
Guide – or more likely, Ebixuln – chose that moment to press their mouth against the spigot of the Yoort pool pipe. I watched, transfixed, as a bulge traveled up Guide's throat, and then a faint splashing sound came from inside the pipe.
«Ew,» said Tobias, fervently. «Guide, what are you doing? Do I want to know?»
I tried to stop Guide, but how could I signal that what they were about to say was dangerous? How could they understand, not knowing my friends' completely understandable fear and loathing of all things Yeerk? Prejudice like that would be unthinkable here. So Guide said, «Ah! Did you not know? I have a Yoort partner. We spend most of our time together, and Ebixuln had not fed in two days, so they had to go into the Yoort pool to absorb Kandrona rays in order to remain refreshed and alert.»
Ax's tail blade was at Guide's throat before I could blink. «Yeerks!» he cried. «They're all Yeerks!» Quincy bared his fangs, but of course there was nothing he could do. Merlyse became a coyote and snarled, and Abineng had his horns lowered like he might charge Guide at any second. I realized that my nails were digging into my palms. Stop it, Aftran, I thought, and my hands eased open. I've got this.
"Wait!" I said. "Guide, how do you feel about Ebixuln? Your partner?"
One of Guide's stalk-eyes pointed at Ax's blade while the other goggled at me. «Feel? About Ebixuln?» Their mouth nervously gasped in air. «We became partners for compatibility, not simply business, if that is what you ask. Ebixuln complements my – listen, can you tell your associate to take his blade away from my – »
TSEEEEWWW! A smoking hole appeared in the door. My body flooded with adrenaline, and my breath came in ragged gasps. "Howlers!" Jake cried. "Morph!"
"They're going to kill us," Marco moaned, clinging to Diamanta's anaconda body.
Coarse brown hair sprouted from Rachel's face, and Ax was facing the door, Guide's throat abandoned in favor of the real threat. "NO!" Jake bellowed. "Not combat morphs! Go small! Flies!"
«What should I do?» Guide said, trembling all over with fear. «I did not agree to grievous peril!»
"They can't hurt you," I said, already beginning the morph to fly. "You're an Iskoort."
TSEEEEEWWW! Another burning hole. My friends were morphing all around me, leaving Guide large and exposed by comparison. «Forgive me if I am not particularly reassured!»
A Howler's face appeared in one of the holes. It looked around, as if to decide whether to shoot us through the hole in the door or simply knock it down and tear us apart. It narrowed its eyes at the sight of us morphing, then lifted its flechette gun and fired it through the door.
I scuttled on my half-formed legs under the Yoort pool system; Quincy had just disappeared, for which I was grateful for once, since I didn't have to worry about him getting hit. Guide's diaphragm let out a scream and they hit the floor, pressing themself flat as flechettes ricocheted everywhere. A flechette hit Marco in the face, and he wailed in agony, but then his face became a fly's and the damage was gone. Faintly, I could hear Aftran's terror. She was not used to these situations, not even when she'd had a Hork-Bajir host.
One of the flechettes grazed Guide's shoulder. They gave a high-pitched squeal as black blood oozed from the wound. I stared in horror.
«I thought you said the Iskoort were immune!» Jake shouted, panicky.
For a moment my brain was frozen, taken up only by the morphing. Then Aftran said, using my thought-speech to broadcast it, «The Iskoort are out of bounds. The Isk are not. Only Isk together with Yoort. Iskoort.»
«Guide!» I screamed. «Get Ebixuln! Now! It's the only way you'll be safe!»
Guide whined piteously, but pushed themself upright and latched their mouth onto the spigot. My fragmented fly-eyes caught the muzzle of the flechette gun at the hole in the door, which promptly lowered at the sight of Guide getting their Yoort back.
«It's not going to fire,» Tobias said, relieved. «It really can't risk hitting Guide. Not anymore.»
So instead the Howlers grabbed the door and pulled it out of its frame. Guide staggered away from the Yoort pool into the Howlers' path as they came in. "Out," the Howlers said.
I could have sworn a kind of manic light came on in Guide's stalk eyes. «Are you certain? The quality of your memories is renowned. I would love to trade.»
«Is he seriously trying to buy the Howlers' memories right now?!» Rachel demanded.
«No,» said Marco, sounding awed. «He's protecting his investment. He only gets our memories if we survive this. He's delaying the Howlers so we can morph and get away.»
The Howlers calmly walked around Guide. One of them was coming for Ax. He didn't have wings yet. He couldn't get away!
Guide threw himself in front of the Howler heading for Ax. «I must insist! I have good credit! I wish to buy your memories.»
"We're not selling," the Howler said in a gravelly voice. The other Howler tried to stomp on another fly, but even Howler speed was no match for a fly's hair-trigger flight. It zipped out the door, and I followed, fiercely hoping that Guide had delayed the Howler long enough to let Ax escape. We owed that Iskoort big.
«Group of Iskoort on our left! Follow them!» Jake said. «Is everyone out?»
He got five shaky replies.
«How are we going to find Guide again?» I said.
«Why should we find Guide again?» Rachel said. «He's a Controller. They're all Controllers. Voluntary Controllers!»
«And what's wrong with that, exactly?» I said heatedly, hovering with the others alongside a busy gaggle of Iskoort. «They're not collaborators, like Jeremy Jason McCole. The Yoorts aren't trying to take over the City of Beauty. They're part of the city, as much as Guide and all those pain-in-the-ass traders are. You haven't seen what Aftran has seen. The Yoorts don't take control, like the Yeerks do. They only have as much control as their hosts allow them to have. It's completely Guide's choice as to whether to take Ebixuln as a partner or not. And clearly Guide wants it.» To Aftran, I added privately, «Just like I would be yours, if I could.»
«Why would anyone want to have a slug in one's brain?» Ax sneered.
«Because Aftran knows me better than anyone else could,» I said. «She's seen me from the inside out and she's still my friend. Can't you see how special that is?»
Quincy added, quietly, «Doesn't everyone want to know other people, and be known?»
«Is it so hard to believe that I would see the whole of you and consider you a friend?» Aftran said.
«Aren't there parts of you that you keep hidden because they're ugly?» I said.
Aftran had no answer to that.
«So if the Yeerks ever ran into the Yoorts,» Tobias said, «they would see there's another way. That they don't have to control anyone, and people can choose to be hosts. Because they really want to, not because they're desperate or power-hungry.»
«And are we to believe that the Yoorts truly do not enslave their hosts? Perhaps their control is so total that Guide has been what you humans call 'brainwashed' into accepting a Yoort as his master.»
«Look, Ax, I'm also pretty weirded out by the thought of so many people wanting their own personal slug buddies,» Marco said, «but let's be real here. Does this look like a police state to you? Does it look like anybody here is capable of forcing anyone else to do anything? This place is about as fascist as a field full of five year olds trying to play soccer. I mean, we had a full-on blood-and-guts battle in the middle of the marketplace and everyone just lined up to get a good look for their memory banks.»
«So that's the Ellimist's game,» Jake mused. «He wants the Yeerks to figure out they don't need war or conquest. Crayak won't let that happen. Unstoppable force meets immovable object.»
«I don't see how any of this helps us kick these Howlers' butts and get back home,» Rachel said.
«You're right, Rachel,» Jake said. «We need to find Delia, ASAP. Any ideas?»
«Finally,» Aftran snarled, breaking in. «If you're done debating whether the Iskoort deserve to be treated as less than scum, that is.»
«All right, Aftran,» Jake said wearily. «Cassie says you've had a chance to check things out. We need to narrow down the places where the Howlers could have taken her. Any ideas?»
«They'd take her to a place where they can't be watched,» Marco said. «If we had some advance warning about the Howlers from Delia, then they probably got at least some advance warning about us. They'd know we can hack security and surveillance systems. Well, that Ax can, with a bit of my help, but you know what I mean. And the place can't be too far from here, since they managed to gate-crash so fast.»
«The Yoort pools are full of sensors,» I said. «I mean, the plumbing system you've seen all over the place.»
«These holding tanks and pipes are full of Yoorts?» Ax cried.
«Yeah. That's how Aftran got to us. She ditched Delia into the Yoort pool system, and got help from some friendly Yoorts to find us. The walls of the Yoort pools have all kinds of sensory equipment. The Yoorts can "look out" on the world outside of the pools using these, um, sonar-images, kind of. Something that they can make sense of, anyway. So anywhere there's a Yoort pool, they could be monitored.»
There was a short, stunned silence. «Okay, then,» Jake said. «A place with no Yoort pools and no other surveillance. Something hidden, and close enough that a couple of Howlers could make it from there to the apartment in…»
«Forty of your minutes,» Ax filled in.
«How can we find that?» Rachel said.
«The Yoorts I met were engineers,» Aftran said. «They would probably know which zones don't have Yoort pools or surveillance. One of them, Zhakdud, knew the Yoort pool system really well.»
«Which means I have to demorph and get you back in the Yoort pool,» I said.
«Yeah,» Aftran said, a little apologetically.
«We need Guide,» Tobias said.
«There was an elevator at the end of this corridor,» Ax suggested. «If we take it, we will quickly be well away from the Howlers. Then Cassie can demorph safely.»
I silently blessed Ax's keen memory. Sure enough, a door swished open in front of us, and when the doors opened on a much more open space, we flew out onto a dark-green Lego floor. I demorphed next to a Yoort pool entrance and let Aftran slither into the spigot. She seemed eager to go back there. I couldn't blame her.
Quincy landed on the pipe, gripping it with his little wing-claws. He startled when a synthesized voice came out of it. "Wow, this interface is really easy to use. Ours are nothing like this."
"Aftran?" Quincy said. "Can you see me?"
"Yeah. Your little bat face looks huge. Okay, I'm about to send messages to Zhakdud and the others. Give me a few."
I spent a few tense minutes waiting, constantly looking over my shoulder for Howlers, Quincy sending out bursts of echolocation to round out the picture. When Aftran finally spoke, Quincy nearly flew away in fright. "I've got floor plans," she said. "They found three places within the nearest five floors. And showed me how to contact them without having to get inside the Yoort pool. Oh, and they found Guide of Ebixuln, who's getting their shoulder wound treated, but they're still on board. We'd probably better wait until we get Delia back before we bother them again. Let me just commit these maps to memory and then we can check out these places."
«Cassie,» Jake said. «Snap your fingers once if everything's okay, twice if there's trouble.»
I snapped my fingers.
«Okay. Good. But let's get going soon. The clock is ticking.»
My stomach clenched. I couldn't stand the thought of those Howlers disassembling Delia, using a pacifist android for parts so they could make even deadlier weapons.
You've forgotten something important, Quincy said.
What? I said wearily. The stress of constantly looking out for Howlers was getting to me.
You told the others that the best way to rescue Delia was to walk into the Howlers' headquarters in Isk morph. But now we know that that's not going to work. To get in there and get back out safely, we need to be Iskoort.
How did the Howler even know Guide didn't have Ebixuln? I wondered.
They have super-vision, remember? They can see internal organs. You're changing the subject. Only Iskoort can rescue Delia.
So I'll morph an Isk, and Aftran and I will get her, I thought.
She's made of solid metal, Quincy pointed out. And she may be in no state to walk out under her own power. Are you absolutely sure you can find an Isk morph that can carry Delia all by itself, all the way from Howler HQ to a safe zone with lots of Iskoort for cover?
My heart sank. Quincy was right. There was no way around it. "Hey, Aftran," he said.
"Yes, Quincy?"
"Can you get at least one of your Yoort to come meet us?"
"Why?"
Careful, I said. They're all around us, as flies. They're not ready to hear this yet.
"Just do it, OK?" Quincy said. "Then come out of there. We need you."
As we flew near the ceiling of the industrial floor of the City of Beauty we'd passed on the way down to the marketplace, Marco nearly crashed into a pillar. «ARE YOU INSANE?!» he bellowed.
Merlyse noted distantly, fuzzily, that it wasn't often one of Cassie's plans that got such a reaction from Marco. Mostly, Jake wanted to plead with Cassie: no, please, you can't ask me to do this. But this was no time to show weakness.
«You are mad for Yeerks and seek to convince us into your ways,» Ax said coldly.
«You can't be serious, Cassie,» Rachel said numbly. «Please tell me this isn't all you've got.»
«Everyone turn left at the upcoming pillar,» Aftran said, grim resentment clear in every word. She took our reactions personally. But it wasn't about her. She may regret what she did to Karen, but she didn't know what it was like to be in Karen's place.
«Cassie's right,» Tobias said. «We can't risk sending just her and Aftran in. If she can't carry Delia out to safety, we might not get another shot at rescuing her. And if we go in as anything but an Iskoort they'll puree us.»
«Fly over these silos and we'll be there,» Aftran said. «Keep an eye out.»
«Are you sure they can tell if you have a Yeerk in your head?» I said, concentrating on sounding calm.
Cassie said, «The Howler would never have fired that flechette gun into the room if Guide were an Iskoort and immune. The room was so small Guide would have to be hit. It was much more careful when firing at us in the marketplace. Not a single bystander got a scratch. And Delia told us they can see internal organs.» Jake suspected Aftran had contributed some of that.
«I don't see anything Howler-like,» Tobias said, surveying the industrial maze beyond the silos.
«Me neither,» Marco said, sweeping around from another direction.
«Next location, then,» Aftran said briskly. «Two floors up. Follow me.»
«We're going to have to do it,» I said. «There's no time to come up with a different plan, if there even is one that would work. Every moment we waste is another moment they're taking her apart.»
«Oh my God, Jake,» Rachel said. «You're really serious. We're going to be infested by Yoorts.»
«No,» I said. «I wouldn't ask you to do that. I wouldn't do it myself. Half of us are going to morph Yoorts, and half of us will be hosts. The biggest, strongest Isk we can find. I don't know if we can trust the Yoorts, but we can trust each other.»
«Prince Jake,» Ax said, as close to pleading as I had ever heard him. «You cannot ask me to do this thing. It is unendurable. I cannot.»
Of course he couldn't. He was an Andalite. It went against everything he had ever stood for. Host or Yoort, he wouldn't be able to bear it. Never mind that I couldn't bear it either, an alien presence in my mind, feeling things no one else had a right to feel. I was the leader. I had to bear it. «Not you, Ax. You'll be there as a flea. You're the only one who can demorph right away to something dangerous, so you're our backup. If something goes wrong, you'll demorph and hold them off until the rest of us can join in.»
Ax couldn't hold off eight Howlers by himself, of course. But he seemed to welcome it, when becoming a Yoort or an Isk was the alternative. «Yes, Prince Jake.»
The flight up was less nerve-wracking than the stairs, though Merlyse still said, Look how far down those swamps are! We passed a floor that was, shockingly, walled off from the empty air, though through the clear wall I could see nothing but murky water.
«That floor is a Yoort pool,» Aftran said, a little smugly, and I had to keep Merlyse from snarling at her to shut up, now was not the time. «About a quarter of the levels in the City of Beauty are like that. But we're going the next floor up.»
We followed her to a level that looked like a repair center, or a scrapyard; all kinds of machines were lying gutted, with robots and Iskoort tending to their insides. Aftran led us above all the activity.
«So,» said Rachel, sounding grim. «Who's going to be an Isk and who'll be a Yoort?»
I wasn't sure what to say. How could I make that decision when the options were all terrible?
«Maybe I should be a Yoort,» Tobias said tentatively. «I've morphed Yeerk before. You know, with Loren. And that went, well, about as well as it could have.»
I was grateful to Tobias for speaking up. It freed up my mind, somehow, to consider the question myself. If Aftran is telling the truth, Merlyse suggested, then a Yoort can't do anything the Isk doesn't want it to. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
But what if Aftran is wrong? What if there's someone else at the wheel? What if we're opening our mind again, like an open book…
Merlyse said, And what would that be like? What if, say, Marco was our Yoort? What are you so afraid he'll see?
I thought of all my burdens I never let them see, the three days as a Controller, the nightmares of Crayak. If it was Marco? Probably nothing he hasn't already guessed. He knows me.
Then there's our answer, Merlyse said.
«Marco,» I said. «If you'll be my Yoort… I trust you.»
There was a long pause. I got scared, for a moment, that he might try to back out, because I couldn't let him do that. But finally, he said, «Okay, man. But I hope being in your head won't make me start liking Batman better than Spiderman. What if being wrong is like some kind of brain cooties?»
It was a dumb joke, but I laughed anyway. I wasn't sure what else to do.
«That means it's you and me, Tobias,» Rachel said. «You're sure you can do this right?»
«Not really,» Tobias said. «But I'm trying to be optimistic.»
«Okay then. Let's do it.» But the words rang pretty hollow.
«Here,» said Aftran. «This is where they keep spare parts inventory. They might be somewhere around here.»
The spare parts were arranged, if at all, by some system I couldn't understand. Spoked wheels as tall as a horse leaned against oil-streaked engines. There were aisles through the stuff wide enough for any Isk to walk through, but that was as organized as it got. And somewhere among all that junk, my falcon ears picked up voices. Howler voices. «I hear them,» I said, following the sound.
Tobias was heading that way already. «There they are! Not all of them, but… oh, shit.»
«What is it?» I came around a mountain of pipe fittings and saw three Howlers surrounding Delia.
Her head was split open, like she did when Aftran was going in or out of it, and one Howler poked and pried at the delicate parts while another Howler said, "Are you going to tell us where your useful parts are, or not? Because if you don't tell us, sooner or later we'll pull out the part that lets you talk, or see, or walk…"
Then I saw the Howler lying dead in a heap like so much garbage, tracks of dried blood around its mouth and eyes. I shivered inside. We did that. But it wouldn't work again. We nearly died trying the first time.
«That is four Howlers accounted for,» Ax said. «The other four are likely searching for us.»
«What if we bought lasers,» Marco said, «strapped them to our talons, and just – ZAP.»
«They have lasers too,» I said.
«But they're not raptors. And it would be cool. Very Bond villain, don't you think?»
«It's like they don't even care about the one that died,» Cassie said.
«Yeah,» said Tobias. «It's creepy.»
«All right, everyone, focus,» I said. «When we go in to rescue Delia, if she can't walk, we need to carry her out of this junkyard and out to the floor where all the Iskoort mechanics are doing their thing. We should be safe there. Now let's clear out before the Howlers notice us.»
We flew back toward the crowded floor. I watched the Iskoort speculatively. There was a kind the size of a horse, but it had these very fine, jointed arms, like an insect's, which didn't really look sturdy enough to carry Delia, and its back was sloped and kind of slimy, so she'd probably slip right off.
My friends must have been thinking the same thing, because Tobias said, «Check out the pincers on this guy, standing next to the burnt-out steamboat-looking thing. I bet he could grab on to Delia.»
I took a look. They weren't exactly pincers, because they came out of the top of his head, but they were huge and serrated, like a gin trap, and the Iskoort was as tall as Ax and nearly twice as wide, with eight solid, stumpy legs.
«Looks good to me,» Rachel said.
«All right,» I said. «Rachel, Cassie, the three of us demorph and ask this Iskoort if we can acquire him. Everyone else, keep an eye out for Howlers.»
It felt weird to demorph right out in the open, but from what Ax had said, we were so far from home that there was no chance any stories about shapeshifting hairy bipeds were going to make it back to our corner of the galaxy. We did draw an interested crowd, though, including the pincer-head. Merlyse, fox-shaped, hid behind my legs.
Cassie waved to the pincer-head. "Uh, hi," she said. "My name is Cassie of Aftran. Can we talk to you?"
The Iskoort blinked the large eye on his face, a strange sideways motion. His speech sounded like bones grinding together rhythmically inside his head, which was supremely weird to be able to understand. "Assistant Airship Mechanic of Axahantl. Your shapeshifting is remarkable. May I help you?"
"Yeah, about the shapeshifting," Cassie said, rubbing the back of her neck. "We, uh…"
«Tell him you think his shape is really cool and you want to borrow it,» Marco said.
"Admire your pincers very much," Cassie continued, without too much of a pause, "and we were hoping to add your shape to our, um, shapeshifting repertoire. We just want to use it once. Would that be okay?"
"You want to shape shift into me?" Another sideways blink. "That sounds amazing. Can I watch?"
We exchanged looks. "I don't see why not," I said.
"Is there anything I have to do?" the Iskoort – his name was too long, I was just going to call him Mechanic – said.
"We have to touch you," Rachel said. "If you don't mind."
"All five of you?"
I was confused for a second, until I realized he must think of Merlyse and Abineng as separate people – Quincy had probably been too small for him to notice. "No," said Cassie. "Just the three of us bipeds."
"Very well." Mechanic let us gather around and touch his shiny red carapace. I noticed he had eyes on the back of his head too, on either side of the pincers. It took me a minute to focus on Mechanic in my mind, because he was so alien. I thought about having eyes in the back of my head, and two long whip-like tails, and the solid tough presence that was Mechanic.
"Thank you, Assistant Ship Mechanic," Cassie said. "Now, if you want to watch us morph into you, you'll have to wait a little – we need to talk to some Yoort friends of ours."
"I'll come with you," Mechanic said.
We walked to a Yoort pool pipe around a pillar, and Cassie, or more probably Aftran, talked into a spigot like it was a telephone. "Can I be connected to Zhakdud of the Engineering Guild? Tell them it's Cassie of Aftran. Thank you."
I stood there, feeling kind of embarrassed on Cassie's behalf that she was talking to a pipe. But then a thought-speak voice came from the pipe. «It's good to hear from you, Aftran. And nice to meet you, Cassie. Can I help you?»
"Yeah," she said, and this time it was clearly Cassie, not Aftran. "I'd appreciate that. See, um, this is when we need you to come meet us. It's the second place you told us about. This is…" She looked at the rim of the spigot. "Exit 49-Yellow-892."
«Do you need us to be your partners?» the voice said.
"Um, no," Cassie said. "It's a little hard to explain, but basically, we can turn into any animal whose DNA we acquire. And two of us need to turn into Yoorts. If that's fine with you."
A pause, then: «I'll come. And I'll ask Ushmyerg and Yehyulu if they'll help too. I think this will be interesting.»
"Ew," Diamanta said, dropping the Yoort back into the spigot. She rubbed her little monkey fingers together. "It got slime on me." She turned into a frog and hopped into Marco's hand.
"So," said Marco, flexing his fingers around Dia. "Um. How does this work? How do I not take over Jake's brain? Because one brain is more than enough for me."
«Taking over a brain?» said Ushmyerg, the Yoort Marco acquired. «Ugh! That's barbaric! What do you think I am, some pre-Contact swamp-Yoort?»
We all exchanged looks. I wanted to ask, but there wasn't time. "It's easy," Mechanic said, very slowly, like we were slow kindergartners. "You feel this gentle sort of pressure when the Yoort is trying to access a part of your mind, and if you want to give them access, you just… stop pushing back. You can push back a little if you only want to show part of it, and you don't push back at all if you want complete sharing." He shook his head, making the layers of bristles on his underside rustle against each other. "You're fresh from off-world, aren't you? I hope we get more of you. I would pay good credit to see a shapeshifting show."
I hoped it was as easy as all that. I rubbed my thumb back and forth on Merl's goat horns. "All right," I said, swallowing a little louder than I meant to. "Are we ready?"
«"No,"» Marco,Tobias, and Rachel said at the same time.
Cassie looked around at the rest of us. "I'm sorry. I would never ask you to do this if the situation weren't so bad. I wish I could have thought of a better way."
Rachel leaned back against Abineng like she was tired. Maybe she was. It felt like I'd last slept about a year ago, but that was nothing new. "We know. Just because you and Aftran…" She rubbed her hand over Abi's eyes. "You wouldn't make us do this."
"Everyone but Cassie, morph," I said. "She'll… um. Pair us off. Then she morphs, and we go."
"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Mechanic said. "I can call the Social Regulation and Peacekeeping Guild."
"No. You don't want this kind of trouble," Aftran said, making Cassie's eyes hard. "It's Howler trouble."
"Wow. And you think turning into me will help?" Mechanic said. "Good luck."
Well, Merl said. That's as good a cue to start morphing as any. And she thought about Mechanic's eyes, and the sideways way he blinked, and the changes began.
The tails came first, bursting out of the top of my butt like something out of Alien. My arms and legs shortened and thickened until I fell onto all fours, no longer able to stand. Mechanic was saying, "Oh, wow, that's actually kind of disturbing," which, no kidding, because there was nothing but two long tendrils where Marco's face used to be. Even with all the grossness, we were drawing a crowd again, and I started to worry if the Howlers might notice what was going on. We needed to get on with it.
My skin melted and ran together into a thick red carapace on my upper side, while long bristles grew out of my chest and stomach. A strange new sense came from them: a sensitivity to the currents in the air and what they carried. In front of me, Marco was about a foot long and covered in slime. He was going to be in my brain soon. I might have thrown up if I still had a mouth. You can do this, Jake, Merl said, nuzzling my shell, then she disappeared.
Thump. Thump. Extra legs grew out and hit the floor, which helped keep me stable when the pincers came. They were powerful and heavy. My eyes migrated to the back of my head and shifted into a new kind of vision, which disoriented me until I realized it was mostly heat signatures, with a blocky grayscale map of the world overlaid on them. A third eye opened up on the front of my face, and two earholes opened underneath it. My hearing was a little duller than normal, and seemed to pick up on a lower range of sounds.
My body was complete. I braced myself for the instincts, but very few came. Mostly I felt a sort of itching in my bristles and a need to move. When I lurched forward clumsily on my eight legs, the air moved across my bristles. I felt tiny particles in the air get caught in the bristles, far too small for my human skin to detect, and a bit of the edge was dulled off the itch. They're like baleen, Merl thought. They filter the air to get food.
"Whoa, easy there!" Cassie said, signaling with her hand for me to stop. She looked like a shifting flame with a dark ghost body wrapped around it. Beautiful, in a strange way. "You almost stepped on Marco."
I looked down with my front eye. I could just make out a tiny dark shape on the floor next to my foot. «Oh,» I said.
"You'll get the hang of it," Mechanic said. "I'm actually quite graceful. And, huh, it is strange hearing you thought-speak. I sure can't."
From the back of my head, I could see Rachel stop moving, probably worried about stomping Tobias.
«With your permission, Prince Jake,» said Ax from a source I couldn't identify, «I will ride in these rough hairs on the underside of your body. My flea form will cling to them easily.»
«Go right ahead.» I was going to be just chock-full of friends morphed as parasites today.
«Can we get a move on with this?» Marco said nervously. «My slime is drying out and it feels really freakin' gross.»
Cassie bent down and picked him up. She looked over her shoulder at Mechanic. "Where does he go?"
"Earhole," Mechanic said. "My left is a little bigger than my right, so I find it more comfortable."
Cassie walked up to me. She pressed the palm of her free hand to my carapace. "I trust the Iskoort, Jake," she said. "Believe me when I say that Marco won't be able to violate your mind even if he wanted to."
After meeting Mechanic, I was starting to believe it. But I couldn't, not completely, not when I still had nightmares about Temrash gloating while Merl clawed against the wall of her cage, burning with the pain of separation. «Just do it,» I said, a little harshly, and I was glad that I couldn't see the details of her face. She pressed her other hand against my earhole, and something thick and wet wriggled in, painfully stretching my ear canal. Marco.
I steeled myself, trying to make my brain like a brick wall. No trespassers. But my brain still felt like just my brain. Look, said Merl, trying to distract me. There's Cassie putting Tobias in Rachel's earhole. She flinched with her whole body, then went still. Cassie closed her eyes, and a third eye opened in between them. It was really cool, actually.
«Jake?» said Marco, his voice strangely small. «Are you okay?»
I blinked. I stomped my feet. I still could.
«I think so,» I said.
A pause. «This is going to sound really pathetic.»
«What?»
«It's… dark in here.»
For a second, I burned with anger. He was the one inside my brain. He had no right to complain. Then he said, «Seriously, though. I can't see or hear anything. I can, like, feel the shape of your brain. Or Mechanic's brain. Whatever. I know where all the parts are and can kind of feel what they're supposed to do. But that's all I've got. I don't even have Dia, right? It's almost like I don't have a body at all.»
I relaxed. It wasn't like with Temrash. Marco couldn't, or wouldn't, break into anything that was mine. But then I felt guilty. That really must be freaky, to be a slug in the darkness of an alien skull. I'd been so wrapped up in my own fears that I hadn't thought what this would be like for Marco.
«You can use my eyes,» I said. «And my ears. And my thought-speech.» Then I almost regretted it. Would we be able to share? I guessed I could just override Marco if I had to, but hopefully it would work out okay.
It was like Mechanic said. I felt this weird pressure behind my eyes, in my earholes, and in the part of my brain that heard and spoke in thought-speech. I instinctively pushed back, but Merl pulled back my defenses. The pressure disappeared. «Whoa,» Marco said. «It's like night vision goggles, but not. And wow, the heat-sensing looks weird on Cassie when she's morphing.»
Kind of wish we had Tobias looking out for us, I said.
«They'd just shoot him down,» Marco said.
I know. But still. He wouldn't miss a thing.
«At least nothing can sneak up on us. Look, there's Rachel and Tobias lurching around behind us,» Marco said. There was a strange feeling as Marco sort of leaned on the thought-speech part of my brain. «Testing, testing, one, two, three. Can everyone hear me?»
«Is that you, Marco?» Cassie said.
«Yup. Oh, wow, I do sound like him, don't I? All gruff and leader-like. Let's get this mission started, folks.»
«I don't say that!» I protested.
«It is so weird to hear you arguing with yourself,» said Rachel, or maybe Tobias. «It's like you've finally given in and gone nuts.» Definitely Rachel.
«Are you well, Prince Jake? Do you have full control of your faculties?»
«Yes, Ax, I'm fine. Marco's just going for a ride in my skull. No freaky mind control, just vision, hearing, and thought-speech.»
«Good,» said Ax.
«What about you, Rachel?» Cassie said.
«Tobias refuses to use my brain at all,» Rachel grumbled. «I'm trying to wear him down.»
«Argue while we walk,» I said. «Delia needs us.»
«Um,» said Rachel. «Which way are they? These senses are totally different from the eagle's.»
"Which way are you going?" Mechanic said.
«The scrapyard,» I said.
Mechanic pointed his pincers. "That way."
«Thank you so much, Assistant Airship Mechanic, Axahantl,» Cassie said.
"Good luck!" Mechanic rumbled, the grinding-bone sound resonating deeply in my earholes.
These bodies were faster than they looked, though obviously not nearly as fast as the Howlers. We weaved awkwardly through the hot welding tools and busy mechanics, then spread out once the repair area was through.
«Are we pretending to be real Iskoort?» Marco said. «The Howlers know them better than we do.»
Aftran might be able to pull it off, since she's talked with those Yoort friends of hers. Out loud, I said, «Aftran, do you think you can put on an Iskoort act for the Howlers?»
«I'll try,» Aftran said. «I have the best chance of any of us.»
«Okay,» I said. «We'll let you do the talking.» I hoped I wasn't wrong in trusting her. She'd come through every time so far.
The scrapyard looked different from the Iskoort perspective. Bigger, and slower going. My heat vision could pick up which scraps had been newly removed from a dead machine by a faint glow around the edges. It made some of the piles look vaguely alive. Maybe that was why Mechanic chose his job.
We saw the Howlers from a ways off. Their bodies burned bright with heat in the scrapyard. Then we heard them. "There's the last of the motor functions," one of them said.
"We remember it all," another said. "There have to be holographic emitters in there somewhere. How else did the poison-creatures become invisible? Think of what we could do with those! Such fun hunting games we could play."
"I have word from Gamma," one said. "The enemy was just on this level. We should move the robot soon, before they discover us."
"Do we have an alternate location prepared?"
"Beta has one."
Now we were close enough that I could see Delia, her head still spread open like one of the wrecks in the repair center. The dead Howler was still there, too, tossed aside like an old rag.
"Tell Gamma to find the enemy. They hide well enough, but they are weak. We should be able to pick them off one by one."
«What is happening?» Ax asked. «Have we found the Howlers?»
«Yeah,» I said. «We're about to go for Delia. Be ready to go.»
Aftran and Cassie were out ahead. "Excuse me, your honors!" Aftran called out in that bone-grinding language, and I thanked the Ellimist, at least a little, for helping us understand and be understood in this nuthouse. "Do you have records of transaction for this robot?"
The Howlers narrowed their eyes at us. One said, "We didn't buy it. It was just scrap."
"We have a Yoort complainant from the Mechanics Guild claiming this robot as their rightful property," Aftran said, clamping her pincers onto Delia's arm. "Unless you can provide proof of transaction, we're going to have to bring the robot to claims court right away. We in the Social Regulation and Peacekeeping Guild take violation of property rights very seriously."
The Howlers grabbed hold of Delia's other arm and leg. "We are not going to surrender the robot. It was unclaimed scrap. We have every right."
Rachel clamped onto the leg on Aftran's side. The two of them pulled, but the Howlers were stronger. "Let go," Aftran said. "Or we will force you."
«This is your cue,» she told me privately. «If they don't let her go, pincer those suckers. They can't do anything to stop you.»
I got into position, nearly stepping on the dead body along the way, and snapped my pincers menacingly at the Howlers. I was nervous, of course, because even after all I'd seen, it was still hard to believe they wouldn't kill us on the spot. But it also felt good to have them off-balance for once, especially seeing the state Delia was in.
"Go ahead," jeered the Howler holding Delia's other arm. "Force us."
I struck. I clamped my pincers hard on the Howler's knee joint. It shrieked, though not with its deadly howl, and reflexively loosened its grip on Delia's arm. That was all Rachel and Cassie needed. They pulled hard and got her loose from the other Howler's grasp. «Move, move, move!» Rachel shouted, and we all started hauling as hard as we could.
"We have contacts in the Warmaker Guild," a Howler snarled. "You're going to regret this. Bring that back."
«How are you doing on the weight?» I asked Rachel and Cassie. «Holding up?»
«She's heavy,» Rachel gasped. «We're going to have to switch off at some point.»
«Delia?» Aftran said. «Can you hear us? If you can, wriggle a little. But not too much.»
Delia didn't move.
«Maybe she can hear us but just can't move,» I said. «Listen, Delia. If you can hear us, make a hologram of some dirt smears on the floor in front of us.»
Suddenly the light surface of the yellow floor was darkened with dirt in front of us. «Okay, we're in business!» I said. «Delia, as soon as we get back into a crowd, get the holograms going, blend us in.»
«Jake!» Marco suddenly shouted in my head. «LOOK OUT!» I felt a sense of mental pressure on my muscles, and before I could panic and push back, Merl relaxed against it.
I realized a bunch of things at once. Through my back eyes, I saw a Howler sprinting toward us – which I had been too busy worrying about Delia to notice, but that Marco had. And Marco reared up on my – our? – hind legs, and struck with our pincers at just the right moment to grab the Howler's grasping hand by the wrist before it could grab onto Delia. The pincers clasped so hard I felt bones crunch between them. I took control of the pincers again and shook them back and forth like Homer trying to wrestle a toy from my hands. The bones ground against each other, and the Howler made a high keening sound, not painful like a howl but just as horrible.
Up ahead, Rachel and Cassie were putting as much distance as they could between them and the Howlers.
Good catch, Marco, I said weakly.
«Any time, man.»
«What is happening, Prince Jake?» Ax said urgently. «Do you need me?»
«Nah, I think I'm fine,» I said.
The Howler planted its feet firmly on the ground and pulled against my grip. Its hand slid free, though not without leaving half the flesh on its bones between my pincers. I opened them and let the bloody bits fall to the ground, feeling sick to my stomach – if this body even had a stomach.
The Howler and I stared at each other for a second. Something made me say, "Would you like us to send someone to dispose of your dead friend back there?"
"Friend?" it said.
«Something tells me the Howlers didn't consider that guy a friend,» Marco commented. «The whole corpse desecration thing is a dead giveaway.»
"One of your kind lies dead in this scrapyard. We can dispose of it, unless you want to handle it in your own way."
«Jake, what are you doing?» Rachel shouted. «We're way ahead of you and getting really tired!»
"The dead thing?" the Howler said. "That's not a Howler. It was weak. It died. Howlers are not weak."
"Fine, then," I said harshly. "We'll burn it like trash." Then I ran to catch up with Rachel and Cassie.
The Howlers didn't follow. Maybe they were planning to go to claims court and sue to get Delia back. Let them. It would keep them busy while I tried to figure out how the hell we were going to kill them.
«All right,» I said, when I got level with them. «Rachel, you take a break, and I'll take over for you.»
I grabbed Delia's leg, pincers scraping against metal, and Rachel let go. She really was heavy. «Whew. That was tense. But I guess we did it. Looks like Delia is dead weight, though.»
«We're not safe yet,» Aftran said. «And Delia's not dead weight. She's our only hope of making a clean getaway. Come on, let's get to the repair center.»
I watched nervously through my back eyes. I saw embers moving toward us. «They're coming,» I said, and picked up the pace. My head pounded painfully with every step. I hoped we were close, but I had no idea anymore. Sounds, distant, getting louder. We turned a corner and there were the bright heat-flashes of melting metal and tools powering up.
A hologram came up around us. We were mechanics of a few different species carrying a large fuel barrel. «Are we safe?» Cassie said.
Holographic words appeared in front of us. YES. BUT I NEED A SAFE PLACE TO INITIATE SELF-REPAIR PROTOCOLS.
«We need Guide,» I said. «Aftran, do you know how to find him? Will he come?»
«With this kind of money on the line? Definitely. Get me inside a Yoort pool and I'll get Ebixuln right away.»
«And then we can demorph,» Marco said, sounding relieved.
The strain in his voice made me miss him intensely, even though he hadn't been in morph for long. In my head, I had no way of seeing the expressions he or Diamanta made. I couldn't check on him, and he couldn't check on me. What was it like to be in the sidelines of my body while I fought the Howlers, not knowing what would happen? Not like it was when he took over, probably. That didn't make me feel helpless. It made me feel like my friend was looking out for me, literally watching my back. It was scary, and I really wished we hadn't had to do it in the first place, but of all the people to be a backseat driver in my brain, Marco was definitely the one I'd pick, every time.
So I did something I wasn't sure would work. I relaxed a part of my brain, the part that felt thankful to Marco for saving us all from the inside of my own head. It must have worked, because Marco showed me something too: amazement that I'd let him take over my body, even for just a second – and thanks.
You're welcome, I thought to him, as we gathered around a spigot of the Yoort pool system. Let's never do that again.