James

The van pulled into the parking lot, and the handicapped parking spots all had cars in them. I rolled down the window to ask one of them to move, like I'd seen nurses do when we got to go on a trip somewhere and the handicapped parking was taken by people who shouldn't be there.

There was a woman getting out of a car with no special parking tag. I leaned my head out the window. "Excuse me, ma'am," I said.

The woman looked up at me. It was my mother. She curled her lip in contempt.

A hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently. "James. James, wake up."

I woke up blearily. The sun was setting. We were still on the highway. The radio was on.

"…Attorney General issued a statement that investigations into the Sharing are still ongoing, and that he would not make any announcements about specific allegations until he has thoroughly reviewed the evidence. Back to our top news story about the rogue units of the California National Guard. Governor Hernandez's claims of corruption and mutiny in the National Guard, dismissed by officials in her cabinet as exaggeration, gained shocking confirmation today when Captain Monaghan of the 160thInfantry Regiment went AWOL along with…"

"What's going on?" Cleyr said sleepily, as I tried to get my dry mouth to work.

It was Kelly secured next to me in the back of the van. "You were having a nightmare," she said quietly, and I realized that there were two other kids behind us, sleeping. "It looked shitty, so I woke you up."

My face burned hot. How did she know? What did she see? Did I say something in my sleep? Then I remembered the nightmare, and then the real-life nightmare before that, and my face went nuclear when I realized my eyes were itching with tears. I stared at the floor in front of me where Cleyr was curled up, half-tucked under my wheelchair. Viradechtis crept along the floor toward her, one hairy leg at a time.

"Hey," Kelly said gently. "Hey. What is it?"

"It's nothing," I mumbled. "It's just – Cassie the Animorph. She came to visit me in Bachu's basement one night. I begged her to rescue Pedro and Lluvia and Houa from the hospital. Begged." The word burned like bile in my throat. Kelly would know how much it hurt kids like us to beg for anything. "I thought they would. I really thought they would. I'm so fucking stupid."

Viradechtis climbed up on Cleyr's head and stroked her cheek with the tip of one leg. The deliberate, delicate touch of a spider. When Kelly spoke, it was the same way. "We can't trust anyone else to care about us. Not even these Chee." She glanced sideways at the reflection of the Chee driving the van in the rearview mirror. He didn't react. "The only ones we can trust are those who know what it's like to be us, from the inside. One way or another, James. We're gonna get our Yeerks back."

Ax

Strains of gentle djafid drifted into my mind. «Aximili. It is time for your shift.»

I jerked awake with my hearts skittering like djabala flushed from the nest. It was the sure sign of a disturbing dream, what humans call a nightmare. We do not remember our dreams, so I could only guess at the terrible visions my mind might have conjured for itself. The real world had challenges enough, for I was in the feeding ground of the Ralek River with Estrid looking at me with her dark main eyes. Under her arm, she was holding the Andalite frequency transceiver, which played some kind of soothing djafid. I stared at it. Had Mertil lent it to her, or had she just borrowed it without asking?

She spoke again. «Mertil informed me that you have a shift guarding the humans.» She hefted the radio. «And allowed me a turn with this.» Her hand curled around it protectively. There was a sleeplessness in her eyes.

It was the first time I had heard Estrid use Mertil's name instead of "the vecol." I wanted to press her on it, but decided that would help Mertil not at all. So I simply turned my palm up in acknowledgment and left the Ralek River, my pulse still rapid in my throat.

The human encampment was on what passed for high ground in the Living Hive, a shallow hill out of the muck of the ponds and tunnels, with an incomprehensible rock sculpture at its center. There was a portable scoop on the Ralek River for shelter in case of a crash landing, but it did not fit all of the humans. The families with children were crowded into the empty quarters on the Ralek River. Some slept in the portable scoop. The remaining humans, including the Animorphs, slept in sleeping bags directly in the cool, slick mud.

Mertil stood watch over the sleeping humans, Shredder in hand. When his stalk eye fixed on me, I said, «Have there been any attacks?»

«A group of young ones,» Mertil said. «Or so I believe. I stunned them. A group of more disciplined Taxxons came to collect them after. They thanked me for my clemency.»

«They are our hosts,» I acknowledged, «if very flawed ones. I will attempt to do the same, should there come an attack on my shift.» I heard a slosh of mud, and stiffened into higher alert. But the Taxxon passed us placidly by and disappeared into a tunnel. Trying not to sound too eager, I asked, «How did you pilot the Ralek River into the Hive? It must have been no mean feat.» I did not mention Estrid's small concession to Mertil on the ship, or ask him why he had lent her the radio.

«The Blade Ship pursued us,» Mertil said flatly. The stump of his tail twitched. «The Visser came on screen to taunt me.»

«I thought the Ralek River could block incoming Yeerk transmissions.»

«It can,» Mertil admitted, his upper back swaying miserably. «I did not. Gonrod had to do it for me.»

A weakness I could forgive, but I did not think saying so would help.

Mertil's thoughts flooded out of him like a river over a boulder. «He wears Alloran's face now. He must have forced Gafinilan to acquire Alloran before he was killed. Soola's disease must have sunk its claws too deep for him to be useful to the Visser anymore. Now he is trapped in morph as the Butcher of the Hork-Bajir.»

We had predicted this would happen. But it clearly hurt Mertil no less for that. «He is still your shorm,» I said. «Just as Tobias is still my shorm.» I wanted to touch my tail blade to his in sympathy, but could not.

«Do you have the mind-link?» Mertil said.

«The beginnings of the second stage,» I said. «I can sense his proximity. I think he can sense mine. But it is not precise.»

«There is one benefit to closing the mind-link to him,» Mertil said softly. «When he is in orbit and I am grounded, he feels so terribly far.»

My own tail twitched. Surely there must be some other way to show my fellow warrior that I grieved with him. I made the sign for "I am watching over you," and tapped my front hoof against his. He startled, then settled and signed acknowledgment, his yellow-green eyes luminous in the glow of the Living Hive.

I held out my hand for the Shredder. «Go to sleep, Mertil.»

Tidwell

I looked into my students' eyes, and I could see in their flat hostility that they knew my secret. I tried to think of something, anything to say to win their respect back, but Illim wasn't with me, and my mind was frozen in panic. A terrible silence reigned in the classroom.

Then a girl whipped out a Dracon beam from under her desk, pointed it at me, and yelled, "Die, traitor!" as her crow dæmon flew at me, screaming.

TSEEEEEWWWWW!

I woke up gasping and sweating. For a moment I had no idea where I was or what had happened. I hadn't had a nightmare in ages; Illim always wakes me up before they get too bad. But Illim wasn't with me, and for an aching moment I had no idea why.

He's in the Aftran Plisam Pool, Kalysico said, and you're in an Andalite tent in a Taxxon hive God knows how many feet under Santa Barbara.

I sat upright in my sleeping bag. And you're in an Andalite water bucket, I thought, looking down at her in a blue pail from the Andalite ship, because…

Because we had to leave my tank behind, Kalysico said quietly, and the whole horror show washed over me again. Holding onto the blue box and hoping desperately it would work. My students, running into my classroom and firing Dracon beams at me. Rachel, killing one of her classmates without even having to morph to do it, her face a pale grim mask. The girl's scream as her caracal dæmon disintegrated. The desperate rush to morph as children and teachers fought and screamed all around me. In my classroom. The place where I tried so hard to help students feel safe.

I didn't even know her name, I thought. She didn't take Spanish.

Let's go get Illim, Kaly said, and I picked up her bucket and stepped around the sleeping bodies in the tent as quietly as possible. Outside the tent, the Animorph Aximili stood watch over the exposed bodies of the human morphers in their sleeping bags. I didn't ask him why. I'd heard the Taxxon attack earlier as I'd been trying to get to sleep. It hadn't exactly helped me relax. I wanted to thank him, but I wasn't sure if it would insult his Andalite honor or something. One of his stalk eyes fixed on me.

"Hi, Aximili," I said awkwardly. "Could you tell me where the Aftran Plisam Pool is? I saw it earlier, but this place is so confusing…"

«It is in the shallow pool there,» Aximili said, pointing the way a human would. I saw the glint of metal in the red glow of the Living Hive. Of course, there were plenty of pools down here, but they weren't balanced in the way Yeerks needed, so the Aftran Plisam Pool was still in its usual metal tub, though now with a cover over it to discourage any hungry Taxxons.

"Thank you," I said, and rushed past him before I could worry too much about whether it would offend him or not.

I waded through ankle-deep, glowing red muck to get to the edge of the Pool. I grimaced at the cold wet creeping up my socks. "We're all gonna get trenchfoot living down here," Kaly grumbled.

"Hello, Tidwell." I jumped and turned around. There was an androgynous, tumble-haired teenager with a pit bull dæmon – not one of the refugees from Kref Magh, but the Chee-made SymbiontAI and a Yeerk.

"Hello, Sai," I said, shortening the name the way the Yeerks had taken to doing. "Who's with you right now?"

Sai smiled mysteriously and tapped a shiny silvery badge on the chest of their jumpsuit. "I added this to my hologram to show who's with me right now. This means it's Generation Freedom."

The badge glowed. So did a silver collar on the pit bull's neck. "This is Generation Freedom speaking now," the Yeerk said.

"Huh," I said. "That's handy."

Though honestly, Kaly said silently, I kind of like it sometimes when the Animorphs are confused about whether it's us or Illim talking.

"Wait," I said suddenly. "How did you recognize me? You're a poolie, aren't you?"

"Illim showed me multi-sensory impressions of you, palp-to-palp," Generation Freedom said. "He wanted to show you off, I think. He's very fond of you."

"Oh," I said, and felt my face prickle and heat. "Say, uh, could you by any chance get Illim out of the Pool for me? I need to. Um."

Sai's light brown eyes twinkled a little in the strange red glow from the ground. "Of course." They flicked some switches along the side of the Pool, and the cover retracted a little. They reached into the Pool, and stood there looking distant.

"Are you talking to them?" I said.

"Yes," Sai murmured.

You could talk to them, Kaly said suddenly. You could morph Yeerk, go in there, and talk to Illim in Yeerkish the way it's supposed to be spoken. You could swim with him. See the Pool he and Firtips and Aftran built. The thought was so overwhelming I shivered, even though the air was sticky-close in the Hive. I reached into the bucket and held my hand loosely around Kaly.

"I have him," Generation Freedom said.

"I haven't interrupted anything, have I?" I said, drumming my fingers nervously along Kaly's lateral line.

"He's not complaining in the least," Generation Freedom said, and they held out a dripping hand with Illim in the palm. I took him, felt grounded by his slick soft weight, and cradled him to my ear. The pressure of him inside was a relief. I opened my mind to him. Embraced him. Let the Pool sludge drip from my wet hand into Kaly's bucket.

«Oh, Julian,» Illim said, when he touched the memory of my nightmare. «I'm so sorry. I should have been there.»

«You had important things to do,» I said. «Everyone in the Pool must be panicking. They almost got killed. Or worse.»

«I have a responsibility to you, too,» Illim said, soothing away all the little hurts of the nightmare: the tension in my neck, the backache from tossing and turning in my sleeping bag.

"Thank you," I said distractedly to Sai and Generation Freedom, waving goodbye vaguely as I stumbled out of the grimy water surrounding the Aftran Plisam Pool. I was still wearing my nice brogues I'd worn to school yesterday, and they were unsteady on the slippery ground.

«I never wanted it to come to that,» Illim said. «I never wanted you to be in the crossfire. You're not a soldier. You're a teacher.»

«You're not a soldier either,» Kaly pointed out. «But here we are.»

I felt Illim's dissatisfaction. It had been worse for me. It had been my students, my classroom. It had been my body melting and twisting into a hawk shape while Dracon beams sizzled all around me. But Illim had felt my shock and terror, every moment of it.

When I got back to the human encampment, Rachel was sitting up in her sleeping bag, leaning against Abineng's lowered head. There were deep dark circles under her closed eyes. When he heard my footsteps, Abi tilted his head a little toward me, and his dark, fringed eye stared into me. I held Kaly's bucket to my chest, and might have forgotten to breathe if not for Illim.

«Say something, Julian,» he said. «I think they need you to say something. She did all of that to protect you from a fate worse than death.»

What was there to say to a girl who killed one of her classmates today?

"Rachel," I said, in a voice hoarse with silence. "I am so, so sorry for what you had to do today."

She raised a hand to grip at Abi's stiff mane. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Her name," she ground out, "was Mary Chiang. Her dæmon's name was Shengkai."

I couldn't bear to watch her suffering anymore. I scurried into the tent and stepped carefully over Robin and Miguel. Kaly's bucket I set near the head of my sleeping bag, then I crawled inside.

«Please, Illim. Please don't let me dream this time.»

Rachel

"Fluffer," Melissa whispered. "Thank you for staying with me. Thank you for looking out for me." What she didn't say: no one else was looking out for her.

I purred and nuzzled closer to her. She scratched between my ears. Warmth flooded me. She was my friend.

«That's right, Melissa,» I said, rubbing my cheek against her chest. «I'm looking out for you. You won't have to suffer anymore.» And I bared my teeth and tore her throat out, purring like an engine all the while.

I sat bolt upright in my sleeping bag. I was at the edge of the pile of sleeping Animorphs in sleeping bags. Abineng stood over me. Ax is watching, he said in my mind. There's no threat.

No threat except me, I thought, leaning exhaustedly into Abineng's lowered head. I closed my eyes and went into four-eye. Through Abi's far-apart eyes, I could see almost all the way around. Ax, watchful, Shredder in hand. Emeraude's looming silhouette on the other side of the little hill. Cassie's sleeping bag, empty – I was too tired to even wonder why. Coming up the hill toward me: Mr. Tidwell, holding a bucket for his fish dæmon. When he saw me and Abi, he gasped a little and held the bucket to his chest.

Abi whispered all of the things Mr. Tidwell was going to say. How could you do that? How can you live with yourself? When did you learn to be like this? Do you even know her name?

Instead, he said, "Rachel, I am so, so sorry for what you had to do today."

I squeezed my eyes tight against the tears. I couldn't cry in front of Mr. Tidwell. I had done it for him. I was his protector. I answered the question he didn't ask. I somehow needed to prove to him that I didn't kill some nameless girl who was nothing to me. "Her name was Mary Chiang. Her dæmon's name was Shengkai."

That spooked him. He scrambled away. I waited until Abi couldn't see him anymore, then wiped my face with the back of my hand and opened my eyes.

"Ax," I whispered. "Where's Tobias?"

«Asleep in the feeding area of the Ralek River, last I saw him,» Ax said. «We thought he might be too…» His eyes swept over the reddish dimness of the Living Hive, where Abi could see vague wormlike shapes moving in and out of the mud. «Tempting. Out here in the open.»

"And Cassie?"

«She went to the Ralek River as well, ten of your minutes ago. I do not know why.» A pause, one eyestalk held still, pointing backward. «You may ask her yourself. She is coming back.»

I blinked up at Cassie sleepily as she came into sight. "Cassie?"

Quincy flew ahead and grabbed onto one of Abi's horns, hanging upside down. Quincy is truly a marvel of the world, Abi thought. He knows what I just did with this horn and still…

Cassie waved hi to Ax. He waved hi back with his hand not holding the Shredder. I would have laughed if I wasn't so exhausted. She knelt at the other end of my sleeping bag and whispered, "You know, back when we found that Andalite toilet at Zone 91, I never thought I'd actually have to use one."

This time, I did laugh, despite everything. Without Abineng for support, my face would have fallen down in the mud. I shook all over with it. I didn't even really notice when it changed into sobs, not until Cassie started petting my shoulder and humming softly, like she does with sick animals.

"Have you…" Cassie said softly. "You know, with Tobias?"

I sat up straighter, not leaning on Abineng anymore, and shook my head fiercely. "No. Never. Nobody needs a front-seat view of – "

"Rachel, she might not know," Abi said. "She wasn't there. She was with the Chee."

Cassie bit her lip. "I know your friend died."

"Melissa's not my friend," I said. "She doesn't – I think she kind of hated me." And why not, when Jake had tortured her dad, and I had walked away and let him do it? "My responsibility. I taught her to fight. But it wasn't enough."

"It could happen to any of us. You know that." Cassie studied me in that way she has, like her dad diagnosing one of his patients. "You didn't see her die. That's not what you're afraid Tobias will see."

I gripped Abi's mane with one hand and a fistful of sleeping bag with the other. I could barely look at Cassie. She was still stroking my shoulder and making soft little sounds like I was a nervous horse. "You remember. When we rescued my dad."

Cassie hummed agreement. "Which part?"

"When the camera lady sacrificed herself to save me," I said. A tiny woman with an insect dæmon lanyard around her neck, who threw herself at a sniper. For me, when I put a whole studio's worth of lives at risk just for my stupid little-girl dream of saving my dad.

"She called out to you," Cassie said, prompting.

"The last thing she did," I gritted out, "was beg me to save her daughter. Mary Chiang. We used to do gymnastics together. I killed her today. At the school." I cried. It was ugly. Snot poured down my face. My mouth forced out sounds like I was choking or coughing up bile. I hoped with everything I had that Ax was ignoring all of this.

Cassie spoke. "She was attacking you?" Delicately, as if probing a wound.

"No," I gasped out through tears. "Tidwell."

"Rachel," she said. "You can't protect everyone. None of us can. We don't even try."

The tears had too much of a grip on me to even speak. Instead, Abi said, agonized, "I promised."

"You didn't. I was there, Rachel."

"I promised myself," Abi said. "Do you know why I decided to put my life and my sanity on the line every goddamn day, Cassie? I never had any big noble principles about saving the Earth. I saw Melissa crying herself to sleep because her parents didn't love her anymore, and I said to Rachel, no. The Yeerks aren't allowed to do this to kids. Promise me you won't let them do this to any more kids. Kids like Melissa. Kids like Mary."

"Oh, Abi," Quincy said, hanging from his horn. "You think that's not noble?" Cassie's breath punched out of her. Her eyes shone. She threw her arms around me. Pulled me close. We rocked together, back and forth, holding each other. We did that for a long time.

When I finally started to nod off to sleep, I caught sight of Jake in his sleeping bag, the weird red algae stuff reflecting off the whites of his eyes. I didn't even have to wonder what was keeping my cousin awake tonight.

Tom

I was carving bark from a low, stout branch when I saw a flash of hrala in the silvery moonlight: Delareyne, running fleet-foot on the forest floor below. I instantly dropped to the ground and ran after her, awkward, a creature made for climbing trying to outpace a creature made for running. "Del!" I screamed, in my human boy voice, not my Hork-Bajir rumble. "Del, wait!"

"Tom," said Del with the voice of a female Hork-Bajir, still running. "Get help."

"I can help you if you just stop!" I yelled.

"Tom. Wake up. We need you!"

I woke up. It wasn't my dæmon talking, but Kel Geta, the nurse. She was up in my roosting tree, a vortex of hrala in the fresh morning air. "Call the shape-changers with brain-speech," she said in Hork-Bajir. "The new-frees go mad as their Yeerks die. We have no medicine to calm them. No safe place where they can scream until they feel better. We need help." Her eyes were crusted green around the edges, a sign of too little sleep. I felt the same crust on my own eyes as I came to.

Normally I would have tried to speak in Hork-Bajir, but I was too tired to remember the right words. «They might not be near enough,» I said, «but I will try.» I reached out to the morphers assigned to our band. «Wepa? Uklan? Can you hear me?»

«Yes,» said Wepa, though it was faint.

«We could use your help. The Gold Bands you caught last night are going through a bad time. You know, the fugue.»

A pause. Kel Geta watched me expectantly. Not too far away, I heard a growl and a ragged Hork-Bajir moan of agony. The impact of swinging blade on blade. I flinched. The new-frees were making way too much noise; we'd have to leave and make a new camp before we caught too much attention.

Wepa said, «Toby says we must free more, now.»

«Tell Toby,» I said, trying to hold back my anger, «that it's pointless to catch more Gold Bands if we can't take care of them once their Yeerks are dead.»

Another pause, then: «I come back. Uklan stays with Toby.»

I passed on to Kel that Wepa was coming, then said, «Is there some other way I can help?» I would have liked to help the new-frees – I've been there, after all – but so far I've found that there's still too big a culture gap for me to say and do the right things.

Kel said, "One of the new-frees is very weak. Bring him water and new twigs. Wash dirt from his closing wounds. I will tend to others."

"I can do that," I managed to say.

You can't, said Delareyne. You need to sleep. You barely got any –

CRASH. A branch falling. An angry roar. We would have to wake up and move anyway. Let's go.

I broke off some new twigs from my roosting tree and followed Kel through dew-damp evergreens to a young new-free covered in the livid green slashes of closing wounds. His eyes were open, but he didn't seem to see us. His swift, snapping hrala showed that he wasn't comatose or brain-dead, though, so I waved the new twigs in front of his face, and his amber eyes focused on them. Delareyne looked at the wounded boy and thought of Jake, who could be dying somewhere, and we couldn't help him. Not that we had ever been able to help him. "Eat," I said, gently placing one in the new-free's mouth.

I coached him through eating, even as some kind of way-too-loud struggle went down nearby. I tried to ignore it. After it went quiet, I got up to fill a bark-bowl with water from a tiny creek, and I overheard Wepa and Kel splashing water to clean themselves of green blood while they talked. Wepa said, "Ten dead since we left home. Ten new-frees, also."

"Ten new-frees Elgat and her circle cannot help," Kel said.

"Ten fewer enslaved Hork-Bajir chasing us," Wepa countered.

I carried the water to the new-free and poured it slowly into his mouth. There was a light in his eyes now, but he still didn't speak or acknowledge me. Kel called out to me. "Help him move. Wepa found a new place for us. She thinks the Yeerks are close."

I tugged the new-free into a climbing position against the tree trunk. He moved with me, but one of his wounds reopened, and he whimpered. I said, "I don't know if he can move."

"He moves," Kel said softly, "or he dies now, so he will not be a slave again."

"All right, buddy," I said to my charge in English. "I guess it's time to move."

Eva

I woke with sweat cooling on my skin and a dry fuzz in my mouth. It was still night-cycle on the ship, the day-lamps dark in my quarters.

«You were having a nightmare,» Aftran explained.

"I don't remember it," said Mercurio, looking at me over the side of the bed.

«Good. I woke you up in time.»

I didn't ask her what it had been, even though she would know. At this rate, Mercurio said, she's going to end up knowing you better than I do. I rolled out of bed, wide awake and angry about it. I always got headaches on fewer than seven hours of sleep. Mercurio warned, Don't take it out on Aftran, so I decided to take it out on somebody else. I staggered to my terminal and pinged my personal assistant.

Any news?

One minute. Two minutes. Trafit had been asleep, then. I grinned, and Aftran sighed, Schadenfreude doesn't suit you.

"I think it suits her fine," Mercurio said, and the terminal pinged.

The Living Hive inoculation arrived an hour ago. I am sorry, I didn't know you were awake, or I would have informed you immediately.

"Well," I said. "At least this sleepless night isn't a total waste."

Show me.

I got dressed and met Trafit outside our quarters. Their translucent eyelids blinked slowly and gummily. Aftran was right: I shouldn't take pleasure in tormenting Trafit, not when their host was suffering too. But I'd spent enough time enjoying Edriss's suffering, even when it meant I suffered too, that I couldn't help but get a thrill anyway.

"I've updated your chip with access to the designated storage bay," Trafit said through the tablet.

Aftran took over. "How robust is the Living Hive to other microbiomes? Or vice versa? Do I need to decontaminate my host before going in?"

"Some hosts exhibit allergies to the fungal components of the Living Hive," Trafit said. "Be alert for signs of allergic reaction in your host and seek medical attention if you need it. As for the reverse – starting strains of the Hive are vulnerable to invasion by other microbes, until they come into equilibrium with their associated Taxxons, so take the face mask hanging by the door."

There was a creepy filter face mask in a plasteel case by the entrance to the storage bay. I put it on and felt like a horror movie villain. "Dismissed, Trafit," I said, muffled by the mask.

«So,» I said. «How do you know so much about microbiomes, Aftran?»

«All Yeerks do,» Aftran said, a little surprised. «It's a component of our basic training on maintaining Pool health and purity standards.»

Right, Mercurio thought. That is a particular preoccupation of theirs. The first time I was infested, I threw up on the infestation pier in reflexive disgust, and a million alarms went off in the Pool as my vomit dripped down into the Pool sludge. I was too busy freaking out at the time to understand why, but afterward Edriss had a lot of paperwork to sign about Pool decontamination procedures.

The lights were dim inside the storage bay for the ship's night-cycle, which let me see the reddish bioluminescence in the hot-tub-sized tank. It was like interconnected neurons in a brain, mold warping old bread, and weeds pushing through the cracks of a sidewalk, all overlapping each other in the water, glowing as if with heat. I was just tall enough to tip my masked chin over the edge of the tank and look down.

«IS SOMEBODY THERE?» The thought-speech voice was huge, but thin somehow, a shrill voice bleating in a vast, echoing cathedral.

"Yaaahhh!" I screamed inside the mask. I jolted backward and almost tripped over Mercurio. I steadied myself on the side of the tank. «Right. It talks. The Animorphs told me that already. It's a dæmon for Taxxons. Kind of.»

«Let me try,» Aftran said. She rested my chin on the edge of the tank again and called out with my mouth in Galard: "Do you understand me?"

«HELLO? IS SOMEBODY HERE? WHERE AM I?»

So much for that. As I leaned back and racked my brain for ideas, Aftran said, «I have an idea, but you won't like it.»

«Try me. My standards hit rock bottom ages ago.»

«Remember that time I morphed Edriss in your skull and you tore me a new one?»

«Right,» Mercurio said. «You could thought-speak to the Hive and nobody would know any morphing was going on.»

«Ugh, fine,» I said. «It's only the fourth weirdest thing to happen this rane.»

There was a blissful moment of disconnection when Mercurio and I were alone in our heads. Then she was back. «Does she feel like Edriss at all?» I asked Mercurio.

«No,» Mercurio said firmly. «It's still just Aftran.»

«I SENSE NEW AIR CURRENTS AND LIFE-PLUMES. SOMEONE IS HERE. WHY WILL NO ONE TELL ME WHERE THEY HAVE TAKEN ME?»

I pressed my hand against the side of the tank. It was a useless gesture – the Living Hive couldn't possibly sense it, and I was nowhere near stupid enough to try to reach into the murky water in the tank and contaminate the ember-red filaments of the Hive with my hand germs. But the Hive sounded afraid, and it had done nothing wrong, so some part of me wanted to reach out. Aftran said, «Can you hear me? What is your name?»

«HOW CAN I KNOW MY NAME WHEN I DO NOT KNOW WHERE I AM?»

That brought both of us up short. «We took it from its home,» Mercurio realized.

«We ordered the Living Hive here like something from a catalog,» I said. «We never even considered what it would mean. What is this farce of playing Visser One doing to me?»

«We are on a spaceship,» Aftran said. «The Pool Ship of Earth.»

«WHAT IS A SPACESHIP?»

«They didn't tell it anything,» Mercurio said softly. «It didn't know where it was going.»

«Like it was just freight,» I thought numbly.

Aftran's usual cynicism retreated. She said carefully, «It is how the Yeerks came to your world. How the Taxxons leave your world to go to other places.»

«THE TUNNELERS THROUGH THE SKY. YOU MEAN – I AM IN THE SKY.» It said that the way a human might say, "I'm in the Chernobyl exclusion zone," or "I'm a hundred feet down a mineshaft," sick with dread. It spoke again, panicked and trembly. Its bioluminescence flared and flickered, like wind over hot coals. «ARE THERE ANY TAXXONS HERE? WHERE ARE THEY? I NEED THEM!»

«Eva, what do I do?» Aftran demanded. «This Hive is about to lose it!»

«Ask it about where it came from,» I said. «Get it talking about something familiar.»

Aftran said, «There are Taxxons on this spaceship. You will meet them soon. Why don't you tell me about where you came from?»

«I BUDDED OFF OF IRON MARSH HIVE. THERE IS IRON IN THE SEDIMENT THERE, AND BLANKETS OF CLOUDGREEN WITH MANY LONG ROOTS. IRON MARSH HIVE SENT ME AND TWENTY OF VER TAXXONS TO OUR YEERK PROTECTORS. BUT WE WERE SEPARATED! I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! I AM ALONE!»

«Budded off,» Aftran echoed in my head.

«Aftran,» I said, horrified. I clutched at the edge of the tank for support. «This is a new Living Hive. A young one. It's like a little child.» A thousand memories of holding Marco and Diamanta welled up. I looked down into the tank and tried to find something familiar there. It was like a Taxxon dæmon, wasn't it? Like little Dia, turning into a tadpole and splashing around with Mercurio in the bathtub while I washed Marco. But I couldn't find anything childlike in something that looked like a radioactive hot tub that hadn't been cleaned in years.

«We've seen so many strange things, Eva,» Mercurio said. «Free Hork-Bajir who saved us from falling to drown in the ocean. Marco, made God's own soldier for freedom. A Yeerk who morphs you so much it's become almost normal. It has to be possible that a pile of wet mold could be a scared child!»

«This is a child,» Aftran mused, sending me an image of a Yeerk grub, tiny and wriggling. «So is this.» Marco as a squashed newborn.

«Read me,» I told Aftran. My breath was loud inside the filter mask. «I know how to do this. Say what I would say.»

«You're not alone,» Aftran said. «I am here. I will help you. I want you to be safe.» I could have believed she had been a minder in the Yeerk creches all her life. But she had drawn it all from me. The echo of it in her, borrowed, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle up, for just a moment, before Aftran smoothed them back down.

«IRON MARSH HIVE SAID I HAD TO GO,» the Hive said miserably. I could hear the wobble where the baby Hive couldn't quite keep up the huge, echoing quality of ver voice. «VE SAID I HAD A VERY IMPORTANT JOB. ALL THE TAXXONS WHO LEAVE FOR YEERK PROTECTION HAVE NO HIVE. BUT I COULD BE THE FIRST HIVE TO LEAVE HOME WITH THEM AND BE THEIRS.»

«Iron Marsh Hive was right,» Aftran said, pulling on a memory of the time Marco asked me how to be a good friend. «You could do something very important for the Taxxons on this spaceship. But first, you have to feel safe and comfortable. Is there something I can do to help?»

The young Hive spoke in the closest thing ve could to a whisper. «I AM SCARED OF THE SKY. IT IS EMPTY AND DRY AND SO OPEN. AM I SAFE INSIDE THIS TUNNELER?»

Mercurio hid his face against my hip. Ve wasn't safe on the Pool ship. Of course ve wasn't. But if ve died here, it would be because of the war, not because of an engineering failure in the ship.

«The Pool ship has thick walls,» Aftran said. «They keep the sky out and all of us in here, where it's warm and there's plenty of water. If a wall should break, alarms go off, and an emergency force field goes up to protect us until someone can come fix it.»

«THE SKY-TUNNELER IS SAFE.»

«Yes,» Aftran lied, and I could feel the echo of my misery in her.

«ALL RIGHT. THEN MY NAME IS SKY HIVE. AND YOU ARE NOT A TAXXON, BUT YOU ARE MY QUEEN.»