(Uh, no!) Marco exclaimed. (Man, these guys have been here for an hour already! The Yeerks may have already infested their targets!)

(Are those the right guys down there?) Cassie asked. (The group from Area 51?)

Keeping his voice carefully free of any hints of accusation, Jake answered. (There are a lot of twenty- and thirty-year-old guys with short hair. A lot of crewcuts. All in all, it's a very military-looking crowd down there.)

(Good,) Slade said. (At least we know we're in the right place.)

Cassie was berating herself for being stupid, for giving the Yeerks ample time to infest more innocent people, and for not telling the other Animorphs about the thoughts she had been having. I could be personally responsible for a bunch of innocent people being infested by the Yeerks!

(Either way, we have to get down there,) Marco said. (But I wonder who's back at the base guarding the Toilet From Outer Space?)

(I'm sure there are still plenty of people back at Area 51,) Jake said. (And, in any case, that's not our current problem. Our problem is that we have no more time to figure out what the rest of the Yeerks plans are. All that we know right now is that the Yeerks are probably going to use this place to infest the higher-ranking officers from Area 51. The question is, where? Where, in a park this big and public, could the Yeerks be able to make their move with the kind of privacy they would want?)

Now was not the time for self-recriminations, Cassie knew, so she stopped berating herself for her failure. (There are two possible places. The Yeerks would want to be able to grab people without the risk of being seen, right?) Cassie asked, knowing that it was a rhetorical question but unable to keep herself from asking. (The log ride is dark inside. They could either use that, or the House of Horrors ride. Those are the only places that the Yeerks could use without being spotted.)

(Okay, so we'll split up,) Jake said, getting down to business now that all of the particulars of this new mission had been worked out. (Cassie, Marco, Slade and I will go to investigate the log ride. Rachel, you Ax and Tobias go check out the House of Horrors.)

(We're on it, Jake,) Rachel said, as she and her group formed into a loose squadron and flew off into the night.