The Assignment

Star Trek – Animorphs


My name is Tobias. And, no, my day didn't improve from being shoved in a cage to be ogled by scientists.

If you can picture it, imagine.

You're a bird the size of a housecat. You're also a boy, a person inside the bird's brain. Clipped wings, boxed up, trapped. Afraid.

And sharp as your talons are, fierce as the hawk's instincts can be, you're human enough to think of all the creative ways your captors can end your life. You know of the incredible speed that people can switch from curiosity to sadistic 'play'.

And your only friend in this whole situation isn't just losing her mind, but she's standing beside the most suspect dude of suspicious characters in the group holding you captive. No, not just standing next to him. Shaking his hand. Managing a soft, watery smile.

Shaking hands and smiling.

I shook. But with fear or, or with rage… I don't know.

Just moments ago my wings were pressed against the glass walls of the cube, covert feathers squashed into weird shapes in my efforts to get away. I couldn't get out, I knew that. But the hawk couldn't comprehend invisible walls. It didn't understand that the person behind the bright orange tentacles and huge serrated beak was my friend. My comrade. She'd never hurt me.

The hawk didn't really get friends. Solitary hunters, you know.

But maybe I could take a lesson from that one-track, survivalist instinct. I glared at her. Not because I was angry – yet. My natural state. Can't really smile with a beak, you know?

It couldn't be Cassie. Not our good-hearted, loyal Cassie. Nothing could turn our girl against us – not tree-hugging, not imminent death, nothing.

I couldn't comprehend it. She didn't even look at me. And heedless of my demands, my questions, she was escorted out the door. Out of the room.

Away from me.

«What did… I said to myself. «…What did they say to you? Is this a trick? Are you… Cassie, what's going on?

I didn't get it. The hawk didn't care, not really. But the boy's incomprehension needed an answer.

Then, a draft of fresh air. Not as warm as the circulated atmosphere in my cage. Looking up in a short jerk, I could have curved my keratin lips into a quiet, deadly smile.

A crack.

Whatever material the walls were made from, it shattered easily as glass. The hole was about the size of a coin. Jagged, splintered. Small enough to not be noticed right away. And the last Controller had his back to me, studying something in his hands.

I began to morph. And I sent a message to my friend.

«Cassie, I'm glad you're okay.» It sounded a little forced. I shoved my feelings down and continued. «We're in deep dog-doo right now with your, uh, condition. But it's not your fault. I know that.»

Antennae first. The soft feathers on my chest hardened, heavy, and I controlled a slump to the floor. It didn't clunk as loudly as I'd feared.

My tail shot back inside my body.

«But – I don't get why you didn't talk to me. I mean, maybe – you're just playing along? I'm just a dumb bird, right?» I made a chuckle ring through the line, very much unlike me. «Just keep yourself safe, okay? I'm going flea. When you get the chance, come find me. I'll be waiting.»

Don't worry about the possibilities. The boy's wondering can wait. I needed to focus, to shrink down, down, legs wired in tight springs to leap and jump. It must have been one of the more rapid morphs I'd ever done. Maybe all the biting I'd taken as a wild bird gave me an affinity for the little blood-suckers.

Head somewhere between feathered and plucked chicken, there was no chance of a grimace showing under creeping mouthparts.

Cassie had changed. In more ways than one. A dying squid one moment – a girl again, the next. The morphing back under control. But not alone. That pointy-eared freak, the one that just didn't seem right, didn't smile, didn't frown. He'd touched her. He'd been near her head, adjusting a grip on her face as she demorphed.

And all I'd had from her was a whispered line about not fighting back. About not burning our bridges. Then she'd been whisked out, the delicate grip on her elbow befitting an honoured guest.

I hadn't seen her ears behind his back. For that moment of coming to her senses, Cassie had been out of sight.

I felt sick.

My last impressions of the room involved movement. Shouting. The floor vibrated under my completed hairy feet.

I collected them under the tiny speck that was me and jumped.


Just Cassie here.

Air gushed over my dry face.

Nose twitching, I tried to cover it. The smells. Antiseptic. Indefinable marks. Nothing making sense. I needed a different mind to cover this. Despite demorphing, something of it remained. A burn in my nostrils brought tears to my eyes.

Behind me, a red door slid shut. The whoosh had a note of finality to it.

Crystal bleeper working over my chest, Dr. McCoy pursed his lips at the approach of well-groomed staff. Nurses in their futuristic scrubs, all wearing insignias on their chests, none of which I recognized. All human.

"Doctor."

One of the few men. Close-cropped brown curls in a style close to my own, his glance friendly, if distant.

"She's sterile." Short and clipped. A quick glance at me, the way I'd hidden a slight smile under the hand covering my nose, and he clarified, "medically speaking, for regard to her health, of course. We need a complete physical work-up and separate room. Nurse," McCoy waved to an attentive face, a middle-aged woman standing on her toes, "get me a list of vaccinations for base Federation citizenship and begin synthesizing..."

Rattling off names and compounds I didn't recognize, his grip on my elbow guided me past the few individuals lying in bed in a deceptively swift manoeuvre.

It wasn't fast enough.

My throat seized up. Yeah. Smelled it before I saw him.

Not blood. They'd cleaned that up, glued the wounds shut with some kind of clear gel. The bite itself didn't smell anything like an injury. But him. I knew it instinctively.

A pair of wide, curious eyes, free of any kind of fear watched me pass. I stared back, eyes probably wider.

Pressure. The pinch of skin in the crook of my elbow drew me back.

My head swivelled to catch the comments passing over my head. Matronly, in a youthful, wholesome way, my guidance had been transferred to a blonde nurse. Remembering the taste, the excitement, the thrill. I hadn't even noticed.

She ushered our group of shellshocked teenage girl, three attached aides and a doctor still giving orders past a sliding door. It sealed behind us.

I sighed. My hand dropped an inch. The air held less potency in this ward; not so recently used.

To their credit, the staff didn't interrogate me in all the bustle. I didn't fight the transfer. Too tired, I could say. Dragging my feet. My head hurt, and I looked for an empty bin the moment we passed the threshold.

There's different kinds of tired. I wanted to throw up.

Another reason, I mused, could be related to that hybrid fellow. Dressed in a thin robe to protect my modesty and made to sit on another similar-looking examination bed, I touched my temple.

He'd done something. Or maybe we did, together. We'd talked mind-to-mind. He - Spock - knew more than I could tell.

As if I'd revealed something truly shocking, he'd touched my face in that strange desert dream. I must have looked upset. Apparently dream-Cassie also dribbles embarrassingly from her nose when she cries. Even an emotionless robot could see the tears. And the snot.

The touch didn't feel different from holding hands. An intensity in his eyes, a focus, feeling like a thought had twisted or something deep was clipped shut.

Then, as we woke together, everything felt different.

McCoy talked behind the nurse, saying something about sterile fields and supplements. I ran my free hand over the cushions, marvelling at the silky texture.

The collection of old skin cells trapped in the fibres billowed up between my fingers. Unfamiliar. My mouth was open. I closed it. Deep sniffs to identify the person could draw some weird looks.

Someone I'd not met used this bed before me.

"...And get her something to eat." A friendly slap on the shoulder. The doctor's mouth quivered in a brave attempt at a grin. "Can't have a guest not feel at home."

Poor guy. No chance to warn him not to look. I hoped my compassion showed through a lingering look, a treacherous tear still blurring the corner of my eye.

A jaw-cracking yawn surprised me more than the nurse. Her digging at the edges of a warm thermal blanket tucked it under my legs to almost be restrictive. I felt warm and cosy. Cared for. Like my mom would do if I ever got sick. A soft smile lit up her natural beauty. I returned it tentatively.

"You gave us quite a scare," she whispered, rubbing the bare skin of my shoulder with her thumb. The small gesture caught me off guard.

Faint lines crossed her face as she glanced over her shoulder. Following the gaze, blinking muzzily, I peered and silently approved the efficiency of the hospital staff. Past the foot of my bed, trays and labelled capsules lined up in frightening, ever-increasing numbers. Beyond that stood McCoy, covered in a plastic sheet and flashing lights. I lingered on that.

"Now miss," she turned to smooth a fold over my knees, business-like, "do you have any allergies? Can we provide for your comfort?"

I cleared my throat. "No. I'm fine, thanks."

"Very good. My name is Ms. Chapel," she told me. "We're just going to check that you're completely healthy, for our records and your safety."

I made a silent vow to find out more about those 'records'. Stay positive.

"Now, then." Tall, mature and brandishing a silvery tube practically from the hip. Ms. Chapel's smile didn't change one bit. I shrank into my covers. "This won't hurt a bit."

...

Cooler. Pins and needles, hot under drying squid flesh. It faded away.

Roiling dizziness, turning on-end, spinning helplessly. Sick stomach. It lingered. It weakened. Under control.

Controlled. Yes, that's a better word for it.

I didn't like that word.

But I couldn't complain. Losing the gills helped a lot for my girlish figure.

...

What?

I'd drifted off. Alone. Quiet. No smells; a faint buzz that lulled me to sleep. No danger.

No danger here. A smile on my face, I tucked my arms under a second blanket and hugged it, tight, around my chin. Drifting away again had never felt so easy.

To a point.

A cough, actually.

I bolted upright. In bed. Awake. The darkened room blurred despite rubbing fists across my face, lips numb with sleep. But I didn't have to see well to see him.

That same haircut, like he'd taken a dessert bowl and sliced off the hair poking out. The uniformly straight pose, shoulders back, chest out and feet together. Looking him up and down woke me up pretty quickly.

Spock waited, eerily silent. To his left and right sat empty metal carts. Once-full carts. The contents of which now swam through my veins. Alongside Andalite morphing technology, various kinds of animal DNA and my own poor beleaguered human blood cells.

He met my squint without expression.

"Miss Crawford."

A swallow. Dry mouth. Hadn't stayed awake long enough to take that meal, or a glass of water.

"…Spock." His name strangely shaped my lips and tongue around it. A hollow sound. My headache had disappeared sometime during my nap. Grateful for it, I shifted to lay back against the automatic bedhead, pleased to find it supporting me without pushing a button. Less traumatic than the lab bench, I had to admit.

But he'd come to visit in the middle of the night for a reason. I cast for a subject I could talk about, something far removed from deserts. "How's T – Teddy?"

Because I hadn't given Tobias much before leaving. He hadn't had much time to be convinced about not giving these people a hard time. Knowing him like I did, Tobias could be stewing quietly over it right now.

Brewing. Making mental soup.

Gosh, I was hungry.

"Your companion." Spock paused. One for dramatic effect, it seemed. "Your companion disappeared shortly after you were removed to this location."

I stopped trying to covertly sniff the air. The faint scent of apples could wait.

"Perhaps at your behest," he said. "I cannot be certain."

Pfft. Couldn't be certain. Despite the unnatural stiffness of his yellowish face, I knew the farcity of that one by now.

Wait.

"Teddy is missing?" I had to sound disbelieving. It wasn't hard.

"He is." Solemn and blank. Something missing from his eyes. Vision clear after copious blinking, I tilted my head, trying to see it. No gentle humour. Not a hint of concern. Distant.

My fingers warmed the side of my head, a touch to steady myself.

Missing. Lost. No, gone. He wouldn't be taken like this. The Yeerks weren't here. Probably. I had to believe that. It's either no Yeerks and our secret could be saved, or all Yeerks and we'd already lost.

But Tobias! Could he have escaped?

My heart thrummed, a live flicker of hope lapping at my deliberately blank face. Hope from an angle I didn't expect. Alive, and out. With all of the morphs at his disposal.

Spock approached my bedside to my right, closest to the door. Each step measured to the exact same distance. "Upon this vessel, it is unacceptable to harbour stowaways. In particular," a sharp edge to the low baritone, "those who may mean harm to the crew."

"He wouldn't hurt them." I hoped it was true. "Not innocents."

"Do you know where he is?"

"He wouldn't! Not unless they hurt him first, honest!" I pleaded, needing it, this man who'd seen my mind to understand. "It's not what we do."

Spock's eyebrow raised an inch. "'Not what we do'? Specify."

A frown caught on and I ruthlessly shut it down. "Just us. We don't hurt people. You know, good… citizens. And all that."

Beep. Beep.

His chin up, the hybrid studied something behind my head, eyes flickering left and right. Behind me. Slowly, tugging my feet out of the tight covers, I turned around. The loose robe gathered in tight fists as I breathed in and out, willing my chest to loosen up.

On black glass and helpfully labelled as to their function, a sensor suite showed elevation in heart rate. Increased oxygen consumption. Mild to no pain levels. Blood cells… the function for my beating heart moved visibly at a contraction of my chest. Measuring my pulse. As I watched, the little sounds died away to a silent room. My beats per minute fell below the invisible threshold alarm.

If not a foolproof method, at least a working foundation to see if I had any physiological reaction to lying.

Spock met my gaze and shifted to stare over my head, into the darkness. "As I have previously stated, children do not naturally assume duplicity at the required level to create a fool of me. I will not accept falsehoods." He let it sink in before delivering the final blow. "How may we draw Teddy out to ensure our good intentions?"

Good intentions? Did he think I could trust that? Even non-Yeerks abused power. Even adults, especially adults, could cause harm unintentionally.

"I don't know." I didn't. He hadn't told me. So I was telling the truth, if the monitor could just stop thinking my natural panic meant an attempt as weaselling out of a question, "- I promise, I don't know where he is. I told him not to try." Metaphorically. "Please."

He hummed. Quite a pleasant sound.

"Very well."

Spock turned to leave. Three paces from the door, he stopped.

"Normal procedures aboard Federation ships, emphasized upon starships such as the U.S.S. Enterprise," a small flicker of fingers to the room at large, "dictate peaceful contact with unknown life forms. We have complied with these standards."

The hybrid seemed to wait for an answer. Eventually, expertly wrangling annoyance, I said "Yeah."

"Therefore, a more in-depth study of your functions will be required. The state of your health is – fragile." A blank look over his ironed shoulder. "We have already found multiple contaminants in your blood, which is, primarily, human."

Oh, no. Please don't say the Federation has some kind of blood-scooper to 'clean out' my blood cells. There's no way of telling what that might do to my morphing capability. And some of those morphs weren't exactly easy to acquire in the first place. My face scrunched up at the thought.

I'd worked hard for that DNA.

In an extended pause made awkward by Spock's refusal to actually face me, I moved under the sheets. Uncomfortable. Nodding seemed to finally satisfy him.

"Miss Crawford."

Dimmed lights, past curfew among the shrouded beds. The door swished shut behind him before I got a better look.

For someone I'd met in the most intimate of mental contact in my short extra-terrestrial experiences, Spock acted like a stranger. Cold. Afraid to smile. I'm guessing at that one. Very different to the way we'd connected, felt together in the red dream.

Trying too hard, I guessed again.

Well. Fancy trying to sleep after that?

Usually a deep sleeper, the revelation of my friend, Tobias, alone and wandering what he thought was enemy territory kept my mind ticking. Bed smaller than what I'm used to, rolling on my side almost toppled me off the edge. Tossing the blankets off my legs, I slouched and tottered over the carpet, following the incredibly appetizing smell.

Two covered plates. As I approached the knee-high table it bloomed into colour. An automatic light. Smarting from the loss of night vision, I crouched.

The left-hand side had scents that actually made me drool. Salivating, I uncovered it. And recoiled.

Was this some kind of joke? Feeling sick again, hating the roar of my gut that definitely didn't want actual raw meat on a plate, I slammed the cover down a bit too hard. The rattle startled me.

Wary now, I lifted the second. It didn't smell quite so good but my eyes lit up to see something less… natural. Colourful and definitely manufactured.

Three cubes went down easily, two soft as bread and tasting wildly different. The third crunched to reveal pale flesh, like an apple. Too hungry to care, I took the plate away, willing myself to forget the sudden horror of craving red meat like an actual savage. They disappeared down my gullet. I tore them to pieces.

Hands busy to feast, I wandered, almost knocking a glass of water left by the tray I'd taken up. Despite not having drunk anything for a while, I had to force myself to down the whole thing.

Thoughtful. Good, normal things, eating and drinking. A human touch. If you ignored the alien stink coming off the single non-human aboard – Spock. He'd mentioned 'stowaways', in relation to a vessel. A ship. Not a sea-faring one, I guessed.

The 'Enterprise'.

So we were in space. Or docked somewhere on the planet. Now that I concentrated, a very faint hum came from somewhere, background noise alive with it. Not exactly a vibration. Not exactly movement. But it existed.

Space.

That meant no convenient escape route. We were stuck here. And Tobias didn't have a convenient spot of care from sympathetic humans. He'd disappeared into the ship.

"Tobias," I whispered. "How can I get through to you?"

Of course the answer to that came from morphing. Morphing meant thought-speak, and thought-speak can be made private, so no-one can hear.

The thing is, I didn't want to morph.

That partial wolf-morph. The squid. My morphing was suspect. Who knew what might happen if I decided to go wolf again? Or something smaller, like a fly? Spock couldn't make mind contact with a fly. I think. It had something to do with touching. He could as easily squash me as give me a hand.

Returning to the bed felt like doing something. I sat. Put my head in my hands.

Tobias, you smart idiot. Just don't do something we'd both regret, I begged to myself. Don't give them an excuse to break the illusion. Or to actually make enemies with these people, if they're real.

I needed a chance. Peace had to be possible. It had to be.