Slade rolled his eyes. Marco may have been a good strategist and the Animorphs' head of security, but he was still a goofball.

"Horses. Hore-hore-hore-sezuh," Aximili put in.

"Is that all you have to contribute, Ax? Or do you want to add something else to that?" Marco asked, looking at the now-morphed Andalite.

Slade was also looking at Ax, but his expression was one of sheer disbelief. Is this guy nuts, or what?!

"Horses are quadrupeds," Aximili continued. "Kwa-dro-peds. Peds. This is a much more sensible arrangement than tottering around on two rickety legs like humans do. Rickety, ri-kut-y. Rick-kuh-tee. Is that a funny word?"

"Yeah," Rachel said sarcastically, before Slade had a chance to put in his opinion. "'Rickety' is hysterical. Can we get down to business now? Where are there going to be seven different horses for us to morph?"

The Gardens, maybe? Tobias suggested.

Cassie shook her head. "The only thing they have at The Gardens are exotic horse breeds. We want horses who would look normal in the Dry Lands."

"What about some of the farms around here?" Jake asked.

"All of the people around here know me by sight," Cassie informed her friends, shaking her head again. "If they walked in on us while we were acquiring, or especially while we were demorphing… well I think you can guess what would happen if one of them was a Controller."

The rest of the Animorphs present, including Slade this time, nodded. They all knew what would happen if any Controller ever saw them demorphing.

Rachel sat up suddenly, snapping her fingers. "The racetrack! I should have thought of that before! They have a ton of horses out there, a couple dozen at least. My dad took me there last weekend, it's his idea of a fun outing for his daughters on visitation day."

"Did he let you bet?" Marco asked.

"Yeah. Well, he placed it for me. Two dollars on Chase Me Charly to show. He came in second, and I ended up winning three dollars," Rachel continued.

Cassie, and most of the others, all stared at Rachel after she had finished speaking. You think you know a person… Cassie mused, not sure whether she wanted to chuckle or sigh.

"Humans bet?" Ax asked. "On horses? To see which one is faster? What do you bet?"

"Money, what else?" Marco asked.

"Oh yes. Mon-ney. Money. I keep forgetting about the human concept of money," Ax replied.

Jake looked at his watch, mildly annoyed, which was his usual reaction whenever the others didn't seem to be taking the situation seriously. "Okay, look, we'll go to the track. No one bets. We'll acquire some horse DNA, then fly out to the Dry Lands to spy on the modest horses."

"We're going to do that again?" Marco whined. "That's what we do every Saturday. When are we going to get to do something different?"

"Oh suck it up already, Marco," Slade said good-naturedly, smirking at the other boy. "At least we're going to do something."

"Put a sock in it, new-boy," Marco grinned back.

Can I ask a serious question? Tobias inquired.

"I don't know, can you?" Slade asked, with an obviously fake look of innocence.

Ha, ha, very funny Slade, if he could have, Tobias would have rolled his eyes at Slade's statement. What use would the Yeerks have for infesting the bodies of horses?

"That's a good question," Jake said, nodding thoughtfully.

"All of this has to be about Area 51. I mean, do you guys think it was just a coincidence that we spotted those Yeerk-infested horses just as we were leaving Area 51? I personally doubt it."

"It was way too convenient," Slade said, leaning forward and crossing his arms.

"It may be about Area 51, but not in the way you think, Marco. Who knows what the Air Force could be doing out there," Cassie hypothesized. "Maybe they're testing some new super-weapon that the Yeerks are afraid of."

Ax laughed suddenly, drawing the attention of his fellow Animorphs. "A human weapon that would frighten the Yeerks," he laughed for a few more minutes before finally managing to calm back down. In a more normal tone, Ax continued. "That is not possible. Sible. Pah-si-bull."

Cassie and most of the others felt a bit indignant on behalf of the human race, but even then they had to admit that Ax was probably right. Cassie picked up the thread of the conversation again. "Look, I just don't see why the Yeerks would care about some kind of alien ship that may or may not be hidden out there. It doesn't make sense. Unless… maybe they don't know if all those stupid conspiracy theories are true or not."