Chapter Two

There were lakes nearby that the Researcher showed was just your basic H₂0 – clear water, when we continued exploring the next day. So we collected it. We weren't in danger of losing water, really – but it was good to know it was available. And Ax could make it so the water was clean and not dangerous, using the lab on the Researcher. We didn't have to worry about getting some weird infection, and it was just one other supply we didn't have to waste while in space. All the supplies we had were things that had to be stocked – even Andalites hadn't quite gotten to a point where they could have everything recycle itself indefinitely.

However, Tobias was the one who found out the most interesting thing about the lakes on the moon. He may have been Andalite, but he still had a lot of the hawk brain in his mind, scanning, looking for prey.

And he had information important to any human that has spent weeks on grass paste.

‹Guys, there are simple animals out there. They... Well, they're not lobsters, but the same basic idea? Looks like they have exoskeletons and whatnot.›

Marco dropped everything. The bucket of water we'd been collecting. Not that it was an emergency or anything, since we had simply decided to move the camp slightly closer.

Of course, I wished he could have spared getting the water all over the grass. Now it was going to be useless for starting a fire again in the evening and we'd have to re-collect materials for a campfire.

"Food? Glorious, wonderful food that we could be cooking and eating at this very moment? The magnificent, luscious, juicy sensation of lobster could be in my mouth?"

"Marco, everyone's been eating the same food as us. Except Ax and Tobias."

"But FOOD!" Marco cried, "Wonderful, glorious FOOD! We must take it. The lobster creatures will be ours, now. Don't get me wrong. I feel for the lobster. I was a lobster. The idea of eating one has been a phobia since then. But Jake, it's real food. The first we've known of in a while."

My mouth was watering. Lobster had never been my favorite food. But after weeks of eating food made for sick Andalites I was feeling his pain, badly. We were hungry no matter how much we ate, and we were going through the food rations fast.

I relented.

We got items from the Researcher for picking up life forms for study – of course, study wasn't our plan. Even so, it took a long time to catch them. There was a lot of "Prince Jake, you do not use that so. Like this." In thought speak, of course. But eventually we started getting the hang of it.

But hours later, closer to the evening, we had food. Our lobster-things had eight legs, but didn't really have claws. They were fuzzy-looking with purple stuff, but it wasn't hair. We weren't really sure what it was, actually. And the creepiest thing was probably that their eyes were more similar to a mammal or bird than a lobster. So it looked helpless and smart, compared to a lobster that you see sitting in a grocery store somewhere just waiting for its death.

Creepy.

We brought them back to camp, where Leah had been maintaining the communication system waiting for news from Ondrean, who was supposed to be arranging for us to get supplies. Or, possibly as good, a transmission from the Blade Ship. Ax had downloaded its frequency while we had still been aboard the Kelbrid.

Leah balked at what we brought home.

"Ewwww," she said, but it was more of a moan.

"Dinner!" Marco said cheerfully, "Come and get it!"

"I am not eating that."

"Leah," I said, "We're all adults here. We can eat these... Well, whatever they are... And not waste our supplies further until Ondrean tells us it's time to come back."

"Jake," she said seriously, "I will forfeit my dinner tonight of either variety before eating those things. I don't trust them. Look at those eyes! Ugh, they're like gross, smart spiders. How can you eat something with eyes like that on a body like that? It reminds me of a nightmare I had where it turned out my dog was a mutated spider! And it ate me!"

Marco sniggered.

"Fine," I said, weary, "Keep watching the communication board. Don't eat tonight, unless you feel like eating these things."

She was going to have to learn to be mature someday. Everyone has to deal with things they don't like.

We – well, Marco and I - cooked them over the fire, and ate them while Tobias and Ax were off grazing. They were actually really good. Way better than lobster. I was almost tempted to go out to the lake and grab more. It's wasn't like there hadn't been a lot of them in the lakes. But I didn't want to eat too much of a food Earth has never even seen.

I wondered while I was eating whether Ax had approached the subject of Tobias being a nothlit again, or what his next steps would be. I'd been keeping my mouth shut, afraid to say anything at all on the matter. The guilt was pretty overwhelming, but Tobias didn't seem to be taking it the same way as being trapped in hawk morph.

I wasn't sure if that was true, or if he just wasn't letting me see the truth.

Marco began waving his lobster creature around.

"Sure you don't want them, Leah?" Marco teased, "They're really good."

"Ugh. No, no way."

"Your loss." And he popped another piece into his mouth. "They could use some butter, though."

Tobias, Ax, Marco and I all told each other stories and goofed off a bit – well, as much as Ax ever would goof off. We were having a good time. This was a better environment, a better situation. And everyone was getting better rest now that we weren't all trying to split a job meant for eight to twelve people amongst five. Landing here, it had just about saved our sanity.

After dinner we all sat around our little fire, falling asleep, other than Leah. Her shift watching the communications board wasn't over yet.

I don't know how long I drowsed off. It couldn't have been that long.

"Jake! Jake! Jake!"

I got up as someone continued shaking me, whispering urgently to avoid waking other people up. It was Leah, done with her shift. But that wasn't why she had been trying to get my attention.

I noted somewhere in my tired, withdrawn, irritated mind she was getting, over the weeks, slightly less likely to avoid touching people to get their attention, at least, when the situation really needed.

"Jake! A transmission!"

"Blade Ship? Or Ondrean?"

"Neither," she hissed, "It's a Skrit Na raider. But it's showing that it has passengers it 'found.' In Andalite space. They're hauling them to a zoo."

"What are they?"

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said, "I'm not that good with exo-datology. They haven't specified anything on the transmission and I don't really get their encrypted data."

The Skrit Na are a strange species. Well, two animals really – they transform during their development sort of like a butterfly. So the Skrit is like the caterpillar, and the Na would be like the butterfly or moth. Though I wasn't sure it actually happened the same way as a butterfly or moth – just that they hibernated like those sorts of insects do when they're changing from one to the other.

Not that I'd met one at that point, so I wasn't the person to explain the Skrit Na or what they looked like. But Ax had told me that they spent a lot of time collecting life forms and taking them to zoos, or performing experiments on them, and no one knew exactly why. Still, we needed to know more about what they had. It could be related to the Blade Ship. And even if it wasn't, the Skrit Na were in Kelbrid space, which meant Andalites and humans wouldn't be going after them anytime soon.

"Go wake Ax," I whispered.

I wasn't sure what we were going to learn when Ax looked at the file. But I had a feeling our vacation was over.