‹Do you believe in Ellimists, Alloran?›
This apparent non sequitur left me baffled. The Ellimists were, of course, stories for children, although something, deep in my memory, tugged at the idea. I pushed the thought aside; I was so very tired of living inside my past.
‹No,› I replied, rather more harshly than I had intended, my frustration with myself creeping into my voice. ‹No more than I believed any other of my granddame's fanciful tales of goblins and sea-creatures.›
‹Ah, yes, of course,› Captain Asculan replied reasonably from his position by his cabin's hugely bowed window. ‹I not believe in Ellimists, either; no more than I believe in morph-capable nothlits, or Yeerks that can exist more than three Earth-days without access to Kandrona.› Behind him, in the curved material, I could see heavily-armed warriors entering the room. I stiffened, twisting my stalks to count them. Six.
‹You question me?› I demanded. ‹After all that has happened? Surely you cannot still think...! The Yeerk left my head and is in a box. How much more can you need?›
‹And where is this box, War Prince Alloran?› Captain Asculan asked slowly. ‹Is it in Andalite hands? Does the Electorate control our most feared prisoner? Or has he - supposedly! - been left to the judgment of a handful of morph-capable humans and the fool who gave them that power!›
‹Captain Asculan, I assure you, Prince Jake and his people are the single best available choice for Esplin's guards. They have nearly as much reason to hate and detest him as even I. Aximili in particular would never allow --›
‹Aximili! Your stooge aristh! You couldn't have his brother, so you'll take the cast-off! He's more human than that bird is - and the bird's more an Andalite than you!›
‹Asculan!› I snapped, tail at ready. I leapt forward, but was immediately blocked by two of the warriors I had watched move behind me. One held his blade to my neck - second time yet today, part of me noted wryly - and the other, a shredder centered on my hearts. ‹Disarm them!› I shouted.
‹I think not,› Asculan replied. ‹First...›
I stared in horror at the scene forming both behind me and, mirrored, in front. The Taxxon had appeared with surprising suddenness in the cabin, his great red globules of eyes shimmering in the artificial lighting, legs skittering across the metallic floor. That the half-dozen armed warriors present chose to train their tails and weapons on me rather than even acknowledge the presence of the enemy bordered on comical. There seemed little one unarmed Taxxon could do, but how was he here?
‹Captain Asculan,› I exclaimed, unable to suppress my sudden panic, ‹there may have indeed been something of a security breach!›
‹I think not,› he repeated, gesturing to his guards to move back.
In that instant, I felt a rush of sheer horror at the scene unfolding: a lone subject, suspected of misconduct, held captive by armed guards in an enclosed space, accompanied by the most voracious creature we had ever encountered: Taxxon. This was a scene I had witnessed hundreds of times before, but always I had been standing in Asculan's position, presiding over the affair. Now it would take only one small injury, a low-power shredder-blast...harmless of itself, but I would be meat.
But no one moved. Even the Taxxon paused, simply lowering the upper portion of his body toward the floor. Of course; he would not rush to attack me until one of the others rendered me immobile. Could I attack first? The Taxxon wasn't worth killing, but Asculan might be too well protected. Was he, then, a Controller as well?
‹War-Prince Alloran,› a voice finally intoned, interrupting my quick thought-speak attempt to recruit the humans' help. It was a voice that reverberated out of the past, haunting my memories as surely as Elfangor and the human female. I let my body slump. This was no physical attack.
‹Arbron...› I whispered, half to myself. ‹You lived.›
He laughed. It was indeed Arbron, that aristh who had talked with the swagger of a fighter pilot and had cringed with the sensibilities of a school-child.
‹I lived, my Prince,› he agreed. Arbron, the aristh I had once deemed a warrior - and, moreover, a causality of war.
‹You are Taxxon,› I said. It was harsh, but I had nothing else in my mind.
He seemed surprised, looking at Asculan askance - if such a thing is possible of such an alien form. Asculan laughed, but made no comment. I still wondered how much of this had been an overly dramatic setup, and how much real. Did he honestly still believe me to be infested by Esplin? Maddened, like the poor humans who had been forced to live constantly with deranged and self-sustaining Yeerks in their heads?
‹I am Taxxon,› Arbron repeated again. ‹I have been Taxxon since our first hours on their Homeworld; I will be Taxxon when I die.›
‹...But the hawk...?› I asked, wonderingly.
‹Tobias is no miracle of technology; he is exactly what he claims to be. He saved the Hork-Bajir of Earth in exchange for the return of the morphing ability. I...I saved the Taxxons in exchange for my own freedom.› He waved a claw at himself. ‹This is me, Prince Alloran. If the Taxxons could not be free, then I would have died with them. But they can be - there is now a way.›
‹The morphing technology,› I replied, in private thought-speak. I had already heard Asculan's comments on that subject.
‹Yes. Prince Jake has spoken to my people. They will accept the power. But we need someone trained in the use of the device to offer it.›
‹Me?› I asked. ‹But surely Aximili...?›
Arbron laughed. ‹Prince Aximili will not. He was dropped on Earth as a half-trained aristh and managed once to fumble through the process. The results were, shall we say, less than pleasant? He does not care to repeat that rather disastrous experience.›
‹But his humans? Their prince, Jake? Surely having won a war cannot be described as 'disastrous'?›
Arbron shook his alien head, its coarse features expressing nothing of the amusement in his voice. ‹Now is not the time, War Prince Alloran. Let us return to the Captain.›
During our conversation, the guards had retreated to the edges of the room. ‹Asculan,› I demanded, ‹what was the meaning of this? Armed warriors, to facilitate - ›
‹We had to ensure Warrior Arbron's safety, did we not?› Asculan asked sneeringly. ‹After all, you two go back a long, long way. Perhaps he would have something to say that you would not like to be heard...›
Arbron dragged his huge body around to face Asculan. ‹I have nothing of the sort to say. If this is not a free Andalite standing before me, then I have never known one. He is ignorant of many things, but he is not insane. If the Yeerk known as Visser One is not in the human's box, it is because one of them unlocked it and destroyed him.›
Asculan did not quite roll his eyes, though he would have, had he been human. He had a point: free or Controlled, I would act the same. That was the danger we had all battled against. The Yeerks' weakness for Kandrona had helped offset the threat, helped give one a sense of safety after a certain amount of time had passed, but Esplin and his lieutenants had been working steadily to overcome that. I wondered what would happen when - if? - I told the Andalites the secret of Esplin's twin.
‹Captain Asculan, I offer you this,› I said finally. ‹There are on this planet below us teams of the creatures called Leerans. The former Visser One, Edriss 562, had thought to use them to find the morph-capable humans. The Leerans are strongly psychic, well beyond our telepathic abilities. Find one, morph it, and then tell me I am still ruled by a slug.›
He sneered. ‹That will not be necessary, war prince. We have advanced much further than that since you were last with us. We no longer need resort to crudely stealing other species' abilities to determine basic facts. While it is still technically possible that you are nothing more than a nothlit of Alloran's body, still controlled by a Yeerkish master of one name or another, your brain is your own.›
‹Thank you so much,› I muttered.
Clearly, I had been spending too much time around the humans.
----
He was in morph when I found him. Human; his old body. He was crying. It's something humans do when they are upset. I walked up beside him and he leaned against me, pressing his face into the thicker fur of my abdomen.
‹Ax...› he mumbled into my mind, his human hands clinging to me. ‹I miss her so much.›
I knew. We all missed her, of course – I no less than any of the others – but for Tobias, Rachel's death meant the loss of the one thing that had made him believe he could ever really be human again. Tobias mourned Rachel as I had mourned Elfangor; as I would have mourned him, Tobias, if everything had happened differently.
‹I miss her, too, Tobias,› I said softly. Words couldn't make it right, holding his human form and stroking its hair couldn't make it right, but I had to try. Tobias was my Rachel, tying me to my only hope. He was Elfangor's son; he was my friend.
‹Tobias?› I asked quietly, thinking on my disjointed conversation with Alloran.
‹Yeah?›
‹Do you remember the word 'shorm'? What it means?›
He looked up , eyes and face wet and reddened. ‹Of course. Why?›
‹Just know that I love you, and always will – that's all.›
He smiled shakily, more with his eyes than his human mouth – that's something he's picked up, over the years. But then his features started to shift and pattern as he began demorphing to hawk.
‹I love you too, Ax – but we have company.›
His voice was harsh. It scared me; it reminded me of too many battles. I looked up and focused on the movement that had recently become stealthy instead of merely curious. Suddenly the shock of what I was seeing hit me, a blow to the gut. Not...yes, her!
I had seen a form moving beyond the trees, of course – for a human-morphed Tobias to have spotted it first would have just been embarrassing – but hadn't recognized it for what it was. I stepped back from Tobias to give him space to launch from the log his talons now gripped. My hooves unconsciously sought level ground.
‹Estrid,› I began warily.
‹Yes, Prince Aximili,› she replied. There was no mocking tone in her voice. Her main eyes were wide and she scanned the area beyond me restlessly with her stalks.
‹Aristh?› I wondered aloud. A thought-speak roar from the far side of our grove confirmed it.
‹Aristh Estrid-Corill-Darrath! You haven't by chance ejected yourself from an airlock, have you?›
Estrid cringed at the hopeful note, then daintily leapt over Tobias to answer the summons. As she hurried past me, though, she paused and touched my shoulder.
‹I knew something had happened, but not what! Congratulations, Aximili – oh, congratulations, all of you!›