Disclaimer: This is my original story, but it's KA Applegate's original idea
There were humans in my meadow.
They had erected a large flimsy structure at the far side of the meadow, something I had observed often while flying over other parts of the forest. I believe that humans use these structures for shelter when they are traveling in the forest.
In any case, after my harrowing day and long flight home, I was irritated to find them there. It was irrational of me, but I felt a great deal of anger at these humans, merely for being members of the species responsible for my disaster earlier in the day.
In the dying light, I could see that there were three of them sitting around the fire they'd built. Two of them were huddled together, and the third was suspending a long rod over the flames, cooking something small that smelled sweet, even to me, in bird morph. My mind flashed back to the cinnamon bun that had at once been the source of so much pleasure and shame. I banished the thought from my mind. You would never see me acting in such a manner again. It had been weak of me.
I was sick of the humans. With them in my meadow there was no chance of a late meal for me. I flew down to the concealed entrance to my ship and demorphed into my own body. I expected them to be gone by morning.
The cold interior of my ship was as unpleasant to awaken in as it had been for the last five human weeks. This particular morning I felt equally inhospitable.
A quick foray outside my buried home revealed that the human shelters had not moved from their position in my field. I had to use my bird morph to fly to another field nearby to obtain my morning repast. I was famished, and slightly disappointed in my fare. This field was not well hydrated, and the grass had bronzed in the heat of this late summer. But it would provide me with the nutrients I needed.
I spent the day working on my improved escafil device. Things had been coming along beautifully with the design, and I was now working on adding physical modifications to the existing model. This was tedious work, and I was not the best engineer. Still, progress was being made. I had had a lot of time available, living alone in this forest for so long.
The following day it became clear that the human presence in my field would not be as temporary as I had hoped. I decided to observe their activity, and hoped that I would be able to learn something more about humans, and thus aid my mission, despite the fact that I was still slightly discouraged by my previous failure.
I acquired another Earth morph for this task. It was a small rodent, and as I had anticipated, its sense of hearing and sight were more than suitable for my purposes.
I was surprised at how young these humans were. One of them, the dark skinned female, seemed barely more than a child. The male was larger, and obviously older, but he was several human years shy of full adulthood. The third human was also a female, and looked slightly younger than the male, with whom she was clearly romantically attached. One of the things that I had learned about humans was their desire for physical contact with others, particularly those that they had feelings for. The amount of touching that went on between these two was a textbook example of human affection.
In the morning the two females went bathing in a deeper part of the stream. Afterwards, they spread colored cloths on the grass and lay there, barely clothed, in the sunlight. Every so often the darker human would reach in her bag for a box, extract a small tube from it, and light the end on fire. It was a peculiar custom, one which the other girl sounded critical of.
I listened to them talk. They discussed their school, and their families. They talked a lot about other humans, often not very positively. To be honest, it was difficult to pay attention, as so much of their conversations contained no information of importance to me.
I crept back towards the tent, where the male was still slumbering away.
This wasn't very interesting to me.
Back inside the ship, I tried to focus on my job. I needed to find the location of the Yeerk headquarters, and also the Yeerk pool, but most likely these were one and the same. I needed to locate the Kandrona emitter. I needed to find out how many human hosts had already been assimilated in this city, and whether any other Earth cities were being threatened. And, in order to do all of this, I needed to become familiar enough with human society so that I could recognize Yeerk activity.
And I needed help.
There was no way I could ever complete even half of these goals without a human ally. I needed to find someone I could trust. Someone who could keep my secret. And most important of all, someone who was not a Controller.
Some Andalites claim that they can detect the presence of a Yeerk inside someone's head upon meeting them. I don't really believe this. Yeerks have learned to disguise their presence completely. Such detection is possible only if you have known the individual in question very closely, and even then it is difficult to be certain. How could I ascertain if a person I approached was a Human-Controller or not? It was extremely risky, and if I made the wrong choice, I would blow my cover and possibly lead to my death or infestation. I would die before a piece of Yeerk filth ever entered my head.
On my computer, I pored over reports written by scouts in situations similar to mine. One young scout had been sent to the Hork-Bajir homeworld in the early days of the Yeerk Empire, and had tried to make contact with the Hork-Bajir tribal leaders. Then the invasion had intensified, developing into bloody open warfare, and the scout mission had been aborted.
Approaching the leaders had been futile in that case, because the primitiveness of Hork-Bajir society had been a huge impediment to the development of any intelligence services or capable resistance. Would that strategy be effective here on Earth, or would it cause more harm than good? Any leader I approached in this area would be fairly high profile, and the chances of that person being a Controller, or watched by other human-Controllers, would be quite high.
I ran down a list of other options- scientists, artists, law enforcement officials, the military- and mentally dismissed them all. Always, always, the risk would be there. I would have to maintain a close watch on a potential candidate for a solid 72 human hours to ensure that they were not already involved in the Yeerk invasion and this would be somewhat of a challenge alone. What would happen when I needed to demorph and lost track of the individual I was watching? What if the target individual entered a building, and I had no way of knowing if it concealed a Yeerk pool, or following in animal form? It was a no-win situation. I needed a safe ally to learn about humans, but I needed to know about humans to ascertain that my chosen ally was truly safe.
Frustration swamped my thoughts and I was unable to devise a solution. It took me nearly two Earth hours to finally fall asleep.
After so much thought and angst the previous day, I was surprised how easily a possible solution entered my mind soon after awakening. The only human I could trust would be one that I knew was not a Controller, and the only way to ascertain this for a fact was to trail that individual for three days, the length of time it would take for any Yeerk to perish from Kandrona starvation. This would be extremely difficult in most situations. However, the humans who had taken possession of my meadow had been there for nearly that length of time, and showed no signs of leaving any time soon. They were not Yeerks!
The more I thought about this, the more it seemed like a good idea. At first I felt put off by their youth, but then I realized that that, in itself, had its advantages. Younger individuals, of all species, are much more able to suspend their version of reality, and maintain an open mind- two attributes that would be key in this situation. Furthermore, younger people are able to move about and do things which, being done by a mature human, would arouse suspicion. Finally, as their extended foray into my meadow proved, young people have less commitments and much more leisure time- again ideal commitments.
It would be a big risk. There were three of them, which was a mixed blessing. I would get that much more help, but I would have to provide that much more protection. If I used these young humans for my purposes, they could not ever become Controllers.
I could never tell them my secrets. I would answer their questions, and tell them what they needed to know, but there were some things that I must keep from every human. Even ones I selected as allies. They must not know the secrets of our technology, or of Seerow's Kindness- not the law but the reason behind the law. How could they give me aid if they knew it was my people who had brought the Yeerk plague upon them?
But was this ethical? Could I take three human youths and involve them in an intergalactic war? Would it not be wiser to select someone more mature and responsible?
I made my decision right then and there. You see, I am actually quite young myself. While I was studying human culture I translated my age in Andalite years into human years. Nineteen years old.
At dusk, I resolved, when it had been exactly three days since I first discovered their presence, I would approach them with a story, and a choice. It would be up to them what they would decide.
Author's Note: This one's a bit late. Sorry! Writer's block! This one is short, because I reached a natural ending point and decided to cut it there. The next chapter, which I have already started working on, will be good.
Please note that I've made minor changes to Chapters 1 and 4 at the suggestion of some of my reviewers. I'd like to thank everyone who's offered feedback thus far.
Korean Pearl, Wraithlord42, and Brutal2003: I'm glad you guys enjoyed the previous chapter. I have a bit of a dry sense of humor, so I wasn't sure how well my little jokes would go over. Thanks for stroking my ego.
Wraithlord42: I'm repeating excerpts from the email I sent you, for the benefit of others who might be curious. To be honest, I was not aware that "Model-22" was the name of a legitimate Andalite ship design! I made the term up out of thin air tosound more technical. (I read TAC a loooong time ago, and don't remember much of the details.) I've rewritten it so that the scout ship is a Model-16, because it's supposed to be really out-dated. On morphing technology: Feiranel and Alcolrec obviously view the morphing technology very differently, and this is the source of your confusion. Feiranel, a warrior, scorns it because in the type of modern warfare being fought by the Andalites, being able to morph is nowhere near as valuable as being able to fire a shredder. Of course, the Animorphs employ morphing so successfully in their battles only because they are guerilla fighters and it is the only tool they have. However, in the type of confrontations that usually take place (think the land battle on Leera), morphing might indeed be said to be "obsolete." Alcolrec, on the other hand, as a scientist and scout, obviously recognizes the Escafil device as an ingenious piece of technology at the forefront of scientific thought, and also as a tool with innumerable uses when scouting. Birdie Num Num: I'm glad you like it. I'm really impressed with your work as well.