CHAPTER NINE: JAKE
We jetted along through the waves for a while, with Cassie swimming alongside the boat and calling out directions periodically while Tobias and I hunched over the chart. He'd pulled a wax pencil out and was making notes on the plastic cover, gradually shrinking the area in which we still needed to search.
I was impressed with this methodical approach, and said as much.
Tobias's answering smile was sour. "Mom taught me how to map search grids when I was little," he said.
I nodded and let the subject drop. I knew that Tobias was sensitIve about the subject of his mother's alien obsession, and I couldn't blame him. It would have been bad enough if all he'd ever had to deal with because of it was the bullying and mockery, but finding out after you'd given up on your mom as crazy that she was right all along? That was enough to mess anybody up.
I wondered now, as I had before, how much of Tobias's insistence that we needed his mom's help had just been an excuse so he could tell her the secrets he'd been keeping. On the other hand, none of us had had any better ideas of how to get out here to find the crashed Andalite spaceship. Rachel's suggestion that we hitchhike on a cargo ship had been appealing from a secrecy standpoint, but ultimately way too reckless. Loren's friend's boat was a better choice.
Probably.
At least she wasn't having any trouble following instructions from a dolphin. This was not the kind of carpool my parents had in mind when they talked about sharing driving duties with other parents, that's for sure. I felt a hysterical giggle welling up in my throat and had to bite my lip until the urge to laugh passed.
{Slow down,} Cassie said, and Loren cranked the throttle back. The boat slowed, sinking lower in the waves as its speed dropped. {We're not far now. Just a few...um… Forget it, there's no word for it. Just believe me, we're close.}
"Okay," I said. "You've been in morph about twenty minutes, do you want to come up and demorph before we all go in?"
Cassie hesitated. While she was thinking it over, Tobias suddenly stood up. "What's that?" he said, pointing towards the horizon.
We shaded our eyes so we could see it better. "Oh no," Marco said, "it's a helicopter. And I don't think it's bringing the Baywatch girls."
As it flew closer, we could see that it was dragging a cable through the water.
"Some sort of sensor," I speculated.
"They're looking for something in the water," Marco agreed.
"It's them," said Rachel.
No one argued. We all knew it was true. Controllers were flying that helicopter.
The Yeerks were here.
"Cassie, do you think-"
{No,} Cassie said, suddenly sounding panicky. {No, this is a terrible idea, this isn't going to work. It's too late. There's no time.}
Marco laughed. "Excellent pep talk, Cassie. Now I'm really looking forward to this."
"They're still several miles away," Loren pointed-out calmly. "And they're doing a grid search, look, you can see by the pattern of their turns. It'll be a while before they make their way over here. They don't know where they're going. You do."
{I don't!} Cassie cried. {I don't know - it's all just feelings, it's - this is stupid. This is insane. We need to go back. I'm not going to be responsible for anyone dying.}
"Cassie, hey…"
{No,} she said frantically, {no it's too much, Jake. I can't.}
"We all agreed to do this," Rachel said. "Whatever happens next, it's not on your head."
{It is!} Cassie cried. {It was my dream, it was my idea!}
"We all felt the dream," Tobias said softly. "Ask mom, I've been drawing nothing but oceans for days."
Loren nodded. "It's true," she said, not sounding like she understood the import of what she was saying but serene in her conviction nonetheless. "They're lovely pictures."
"We know there's an Andalite in trouble down there," I said gently. "And you know how to find them. We can do this. You can do this."
{I can't,} Cassie wailed, {I can't!}
"You can," said Rachel. She climbed up onto the gunwale and grinned down at the dolphin flopping unhappily in the waves below her. "I believe in you."
And without another word, Rachel jumped off the boat.
I sighed. I looked at Marco. He looked at me. He looked a little green, but he forced a smile and said weakly, "Cowabunga."
Then he swallowed hard, sat down on the transom, and slid overboard. His skin was already starting to gray as he slipped out of sight.
Tobias asked his mom, "Are you going to be okay?"
"Of course," Loren said serenely. "They don't care about me, sweetie. They never have."
Tobias shook his head, and I could see that he was as resigned as he was unconvinced.
"Just keep it casual," I advised Loren. "The Yeeks aren't going to be surprised to find you hunting for alien stuff, so just react like you normally would if anybody approached you during a...a search. Don't worry about us. We'll be able to make our way back to shore okay if you have to leave," I lied. I had no idea how we were getting back to shore without a boat, but I wasn't going to tell Tobias's mom to stay and play martyr on our behalf.
Her getting herself killed wouldn't get us back to shore, either.
Loren frowned. "I'm not going to just leave you out here," she said.
"That's exactly what you're going to do," I said grimly. It was surprisingly easy to say it, even though it should have been weird to be telling an adult what to do. "Ms. Mulli - Loren. The Yeerks are deadly serious. Don't mess around with them, please." Her chin jutted-out stubbornly and I cast around for an argument that might convince her. "Remember that anything you do that might make them suspicious could compromise all of us. If they find out we can morph, we're dead. So if they tell you to leave, do it. We'll find you on the way back to shore, or meet-up in the marina once we get there. You going back to shore like everything is normal will help us a lot more than you staying here to make the Yeerks angry and suspicious, so please cooperate with them if they tell you to. For our sakes. Okay?"
Loren looked at Tobias, who nodded. "OKay," she said reluctantly. "But I'll stick around as close as I can without making them angry, just in case you need me."
I figured that was the best I was going to get out of her. "Okay," I said. "Thanks."
She nodded, then reached out to hug Tobias. Before I could climb onto the gunwale, she hugged me too. She wasn't my mom, but it was still kind of nice. Especially because Marco was down in the water where he couldn't see to tease me about it.
"Be careful," Loren said. "All of you."
I gave her my best attempt at a cheeky grin. "That's what we're best at," I lied again and jumped over the side.
The water wasn't freezing, but this far from shore it was cold enough to be a shock after the hot sun.
I kicked my way back to the surface, took in a lungful of air, and concentrated on the dolphin. I spotted Cassie, Rachel, and Marco already morphed in the water around me. Another splash nearby told me that Tobias had joined us. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the disquieting feeling of shifting bones and organs, and tried even harder to ignore the rising panic as my body got heavier and heavier the further into the morph I went. It was hard to keep my increasingly weighty head above water with only weak human legs to support my kicks. Eventually I went all the way under, but by then I was almost entirely dolphin.
The panic dissipated as I sank into the morph, and remembered that the ocean was where I belonged.
Suddenly the distant helicopter and what it might contain no longer worried me.
I grinned at my friends. {Okay, Cassie,} I said brightly, {lead the way!}
I could almost hear Cassie sigh. {Okay,} she said. Her thought-speak voice was tiny. {Everyone take in as much air as you can. We're going deep.}
We dove and swam almost straight down. Down, down, leaving the bright barrier behind. Away from the sun. Away from the light. Away from the air that we needed just as much as humans did.
We swam down until we could see the ocean floor beneath us. We leveled off and skimmed along it, like low-flying jets racing at treetop level. Over waving fields of seaweed. Through darting schools of fish. Over jutting extrusions of rock encrusted by barnacles and home to a thousand bizarre crabs and lobsters and urchins and worms and snails.
Ahead was a ridge, a sort of long, low hill. We sailed over it.
{I'm starting to feel like maybe taking a breath would be a good thing,} Rachel said. {How much farther-}
We all saw it at the same time.
Saw it, yes, but could hardly believe it.
I've become used to seeing impossible things - aliens, spaceships, a stranger behind my brother's eyes, my friends turning into animals. But this was just plain mind-boggling.
It was round. As round as a plate. A very large plate. From one side to the other, the diameter must have been half a mile.
It was covered by a transparent dome. Clear glass, or whatever it is the Andalites use for glass.
And within the dome, protected from the crushing force of the water, was what looked very much like a park.
A park, in a plastic dome, at the bottom of the ocean.
There was grass, more blue than green, but it still looked like grass. There were trees like huge stems of broccoli. And other trees like orange and blue asparagus spears. At the center was a small lake, crystal-clear blue water. From the water grew fantastic, transparent green crystals in shapes like eccentric snowflakes.
{Whoa,} Marco said.
{Man,} I commented. I wish I could have thought of something more profound to say, but I was totally dumbfounded.
{It's beautiful,} Tobias whispered.
{Is this what you expected, Cassie?} Rachel asked.
{I...I had dreams...I saw flashes of something...but this!} Cassie gasped. {This is unbelievable.}
{It looks like everything I ever wanted something to be,} Tobias mused.
{I think that may be a hatch down there,} Marco said. {You see the part that sticks out?}
{Let's try it,} I said. {I can't hold my breath much longer.}
We arced down toward a part of the glass dome that seemed different from the rest. As we got closer, we could really begin to feel the size of the dome. It was like approaching the stadium where the Chargers play their football matches. But even bigger, if you can imagine that.
{It is a hatch,} Rachel reported. She was a little ahead of the rest of us. {It's some kind of a glass door. On the other side there's a little room, then another door that leads into the dome. There's a little red panel beside the outer door.}
{Like an airlock,} Tobias said. He sounded dazed, and was swimming a little slower than the rest of us.
{Let's either try it or surface,} Marco said urgently.
{That red panel. That's got to be the doorknob,} I said. {Here goes. Let's hope this works.} I gave my tail a little kick for thrust and pressed my beak against the panel.
Instantly the outer door opened.
{We should try this one at a time, see if it's safe,} Marco said.
{Not enough time,} said Cassie tensely.
We swam in through the outer door. {Tobias, come on!} I snapped, and he tore his gaze away from the dome and hurried to catch-up with the rest of us. There was a second red panel inside. Cassie punched it with her beak and the door closed, sealing us into a small, glass room. We could see out and up into the ocean all around. But the side leading into the dome was opaque.
{I knew we'd end up in an aquarium sooner or later,} Marco said.
The water began to drain from the room, slowly, a little at a time. This opened an area of air at the top of the enclosure. Cassie noticed it first and swam up to raise her blowhole above the surface; the rest of us were quick to follow her lead.
Blessed, blessed oxygen poured into my lungs. It was wonderful - but it wasn't enough. As much as I liked being a dolphin, I wanted out of this body. I wanted to take a big, deep breath with my own human lungs and feel good, solid land under my feet.
{Okay, let's morph,} I said.
Cassie was fastest, like always, but for once Tobias was right on her heels. By the time I had something close enough to feet to stand on, they were both fully human again.
"We made it," Marco said after his human mouth reformed. "I don't know where we made it to, but we made it."
The enclosure was empty now. The five of us stood there barefoot, dressed only in our soggy morphing outfits. There was one last red panel beside the door leading into the dome.
"Ready?" I asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Marco said.
I pressed the panel.
The door slid open. I felt a wave of warm, incredibly fragrant air rush in.
I caught a glimpse of…
Then a brilliant flash of light.
And suddenly I was unconscious.