Chapter Eight

Sitonio led Ax, Marco, Leah and I to the place where cash was exchanged for temporary labor. I noted plenty of restrooms as we went by – or what I thought were restrooms, even if they were designed for these large insect-like creatures. Ax would have an easy time demorphing frequently – and if anyone questioned his need to excuse himself often, Marco and I figured we could make up some disorder that led to a frequent need to use the restroom or otherwise gain some privacy.

The area was odd. The terrain didn't seem like anything I was really used to on Earth. There were lots of tropical areas to what I perceived as "North" - places I could almost feel the humidity from where I was – and other areas that seemed dry, grassy, but with lots of water. But the cities of this planet seemed to sit around in the desert – often much farther from water.

Ax and Sitonio spoke often – I thought he might be asking questions about our environment – but I couldn't understand what they said. Or anyone else. I just had to speculate – a lot of places were uncovered – because this species didn't have good eyesight? Would they have a hard time finding their way in most enclosed areas?

I had no idea. The only places I saw with enclosed quarters were places for workers from other planets. Which made sense – a lot of other planets required shelter and enclosure. Andalites, while often mocking human houses or clothes, were actually more of a minority in being an advanced species that didn't create more elaborate shelters. Not because all other species loved big cities, or because sleeping outside was considered a poor choice – but because a lot of species didn't have all the awesome defense mechanisms of Andalites.

Or at least, they didn't seem to as far as I could tell.

Marco walked up to me. "I don't like this," he said. "Maybe we should just nicely say 'no' and head back to the ship. Try to pick up Andalite DNA to figure out where the 'merchandise' is."

"Shhhh," I snapped, cross. "Marco, keep it down. I really doubt the guys that sell translator chips don't use translator chips."

He shut up. Then, again. "All I'm saying is -"

"Look," Leah whispered, coming up and scaring both of us. She seemed to have really good hearing – until I remembered the wind was probably helping her out. "I agree that the situation stinks. And I don't trust it. But you guys -"

"'You guys'?" Marco said skeptically.

"We need those chips," she hissed. "If they do anything foul, you'll just bust me out, right? You have morphing power. They're not going to get in our way by doing something stupid. Right?"

Ax glanced quickly back our way, then continued talking.

Duh, I thought, Ax is speaking English, as a human. Of course Sitonio has a translator chip.

"All I know for now," I muttered, "Is that we need to shut up and not speak of anything even remotely threatening."

So we kept following Ax and Sitonio, being silent, not even speaking about the random useless stuff we might normally talk about every day. Leah and Marco were obviously tired, thirsty.

Eventually, we reached a nice building Ax informed us was the "registration" building, where we would also get cash for our services. Half now, half later. In our case, that meant two translator chips and money for food and water.

"I guess that means you and Leah," Marco said.

"I'm good, actually," Leah said, "I'm sure they don't need me to have my own translator chip while working with a lot of aliens who probably also don't have translator chips."

"Yes," Ax said, "That is essentially what Sitonio said. He recommends you and Marco installing the chips so you can spread out faster. When we're back we can retrieve the rest and collect Leah."

We approached a line. Sitonio walked – or wobbled – off while Ax rounded and joined us in line with Leah. I felt a little weird, like we were parents guiding her around her first day at a school. But we couldn't start without translator chips – at least, not efficiently.

As we moved down the line, Leah suddenly stuck out her left hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked curiously.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Sticking my hand out for the tattoo. Duh."

Tattoo? My eyes narrowed. "I didn't hear anything about a tattoo." And it was another thing that went on my "things that should be bothering me, but aren't" list.

"Jake, look at the line."

Sure enough, people moving down the line were getting a mark on a hand, shoulder, or other widely visible place. Still, to me it didn't really look like a tattoo – more like when you're leaving an amusement park to go get something out of the car.

"Why did you say 'tattoo'?" Marco said. "It looks like a stamp to me."

"I get words mixed up sometimes," Leah said. She'd managed to call all of us "she" or "her" accidentally at least once – not to mention names and certain nouns. So I had an easy enough time believing her on that count.

"Leah would be correct, anyway, incidentally," Ax said. "It is a tattoo, separating workers from visitors. Leah will be required to wear one, and we will not."

I felt what seemed like a rock landing in my stomach – like my intestines were getting heavy, with stress. I met Marco's gaze, and Ax's, and none of us seemed very comfortable with what was going on. And I could tell Leah was worried too, but she seemed insistent that it couldn't be that bad, that worst come to worst we'd come in and get her later.

I was glad she trusted us, but maybe it was just a little too much faith. We were a fairly strong group – and we might even come back a few stronger. But we didn't know anything about this world. It was not exactly home field.

The person tattooing finally got up to Leah, and switched needles. I'd noticed they were at least doing that every time – though diseases spreading between species from different planets was more rare. It said something in its strange clicking, whistling, moving language.

"She is saying the upper arm," Ax explained. Almost before he'd said it, Leah had already moved and turned, pulling her sleeve up to her shoulder.

The device being used was held up to her arm, and she winced for a minute until the tattooer left. The tattoo was fairly simple, looking very vaguely like a beetle – maybe a dung beetle.

"Like branding a cattle," Marco said distastefully.

I looked back at Leah. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she muttered. She looked a lot more relaxed than before. I guessed she wasn't very comfortable around needles. Marco saw something, than dismissed it as we walked into the shade of the building ahead.

Once there, Sitonio once again met up from us, pulling us away from Leah. "'Bye," she said, sounding much more calm, optimistic.

"Just a few days," Ax said, to be additionally reassuring.

Once we were pulled away completely, Sitonio pulled out a new device.

"To install the translation chip," Ax said. Now about to get what he wanted, I could hear a little arrogance cut into his voice as he dealt with the idea of Andalite technology being handed around in the black market. Sitonio began to place it against my head, but Ax put out a hand, requesting it.

"I know more about human physiology," he explained. "It will be easier for me to place it. It would do best if already by some of the language centers of the human brain."

"But there's more than one spot relevant to languages," I pointed out. I didn't know much about the brain, but I knew that much.

Ax gave me a look. That look that said, "I know what I'm doing, so shut up and let me do my work."

It's best to listen to Ax when he gives you that look.

I let the device get placed against my head. I felt a tingle, a sudden pressure, intense but pretty short. I didn't really feel any pain – even a sting.

"It is installed," Ax said. "Give it a few minutes, but you will begin to understand what Sitonio and others are saying shortly. Since I have been speaking with him for a while, it should be shorter for your chips – the languages all end up in a database so that future interactions with species may happen with more speed and ease."

He walked over to Marco, swiftly doing the same thing.

From there, Sitonio gave us money and began giving us instructions. At first it was the same gibberish from before. About halfway through, though, it began sounding like English to me.

"There are various locations with mess halls in the area – and the zoo is 60 miles northwest from here. That will be about a two day journey in the human days you described to me earlier...," Sitonio was saying.

I was floored. This wasn't like anything I had ever thought a translator chip could be. Some words I couldn't make out and would sift into the home language again, the Cryhalis language. But unless the word didn't have an English equivalent I was aware of in any way – which seemed pretty rare – it sounded to me like he was actually speaking English.

The same things began happening to the signs around me. What first started looking like alien symbols actually interacted directly with my mind, to where I saw it as English.

"This is intense," Marco muttered. "Who would need to learn a language with this technology? No wonder Ax took to reading so fast."

I agreed. It was pretty amazing. But as Ax was continuing to speak with Sitonio, I tried to control the situation a bit. To look at things and see the original Cryhalis writing instead of English.

I found I could, with some effort and thought. It could translate – and if I wanted it to stop for a while, it could do that as well. But eventually I just let it translate, preferring it to looking at the symbols that reminded me vaguely of pictographs.

"How on Earth does something like this work?" I muttered.

Ax was finishing up his conversation, letting Sitonio take his leave.

"Excuse me," He said. He hurried somewhat to a private room and came out a few minutes later. I guessed he'd run pretty close to his time limit.

"Hey," I said. I hadn't been paying attention to his morph that much, focused on how we were affording the translator chips and looking for these people from the human protoype craft. "I just noticed – your morph is older. But it wasn't when we were in The One's world. How did that happen?"

"Usually morphs stay the same age as when you acquired them, unless you are trapped in morph," Ax explained. "However, your perception of what you acquired plays into account when morphing. My morph is older because I have been around you and Marco for a period of time now."

"Still looks on the young side, though," Marco pointed out. "Quite a bit, even. I mean, it can pass as our age, but with difficulty."

"Yes, that would be because my genetic material consisted of you, Prince Jake, Cassie, and Rachel," Ax explained. "Rachel didn't age because she died, and I have not seen Cassie since she was seventeen or eighteen, during Visser One's trials. Rachel's age, plus Cassies age, plus your ages added up divided by four – a simple mean."

"So your morph is..." I tried approximating. "Wow. About eighteen?"

Ax grinned, slightly more at ease with human expression. "With enough thought and effort, my morph is actually about twenty years of age – at least, I think. Physically, there really is very little difference."

"Why were you so young before, though?"

"I hadn't thought about it," Ax said honestly. "Other than not seeing you for such a long time and remembering the early days on Earth, Leah acted younger. In the end, my own perception skewed a bit – though I had not started off at thirteen."

"Maybe we should get a run down on morph rules someday," Marco said, bemused. "You know, before not knowing these things about it kills us."

"Maybe," I muttered.

"Yes, it would be a good topic while we begin walking to this facility," Ax agreed. "At least Tobias is larger now than he was as a human or bird. He should have nothing to fear."

I thought this over while we were walking. I wondered if I wanted to know. Marco seemed to decide for me.

"What?" Marco demanded. "Are we back to the mass out in Z-Space?"

Ax nodded. "We had such a large influx of morphing related mass in Z-Space when we began opening the technology more for human franchises on the Andalite Home World. The accidents are still very rare, but they have been building up. What was once a trillionth of a chance – or less – increased enough to where we actually had documented cases of morph separation happening."

"And?" Marco prodded.

"And," Ax continued, " I would seriously consider avoiding morphing in situations where the morph is smaller than yourself. We have had people with incinerated mass from Z-Space found."

"Yeah," I said, "But I mean... Morphing fixes that, right? Generates the new cells through cloning?"

Ax looked at me like I was a nitwit. "Yes. But only if you can morph."

Marco and I both processed this for a moment.

"They can't morph?" Marco whispered, shrilly.

"If their brains are eliminated by force fields, there really isn't anything left of that to morph and regenerate, is there?" Ax asked rhetorically.

I shivered. The idea of being a bird suddenly came into my mind – flying for a mission, only to suddenly have no connection with the morph whatsoever...

"What happens to the morph?" Marco said, horrified.

"It begins living as it would naturally," Ax said. "It is still a morph, but it wouldn't know it any longer – because the body and brain of the morph are intact, but the connection it ever had is destroyed with the destruction of the original brain matter in Z-Space. Of course, this only happens with fairly small morphs. Obviously, a human and Andalite brain are not directly in place when in a cockroach morph, or a fly."

"Very helpful," I muttered, feeling sick.

"Or a bird. Or a fish," Marco continued. "My god, could you imagine?"

"You wouldn't imagine," Ax said. "You wouldn't have any thought at all – or very little thought, if anything was left. Not thought enough to morph, if it became a problem."

We thought that over a bit. Having some of your original thought left, but not enough to focus on morphing or anything else useful. Or maybe a bit more useful, but not quite useful enough to fix the damage.

"Great, Ax," I said. "I think you've scared us out of morphing anything smaller than a tiger or gorilla for life."

"It worries me, as well. But I morph."

"Yeah," Marco shot back. "But as far as I'm concerned you can keep your brain damage. I'm not getting stuck as a flea or a cockroach and not even remembering I wasn't supposed to be a flea or a cockroach."

Ax remained silent for a while, and we walked on. Eventually, I guess he felt he had to try to put our minds at ease. "We're actually trying to change the technology of force fields right now," Ax said. "It will be publicly available, so that instead of incinerating it merely pushes things to the sides. Once in effect, a lot of these risks will be obsolete the vast majority of the time."

"Yeah, well, that makes me feel loads better."

"Quiet," I said.

I looked out, over to the lake, or ocean. Whatever it was it seemed vast. But what I had noticed were strange creatures swimming around. The head was a lot like a frog, but the inside of its mouth and its belly-side reminded me of a humpback whale. It had legs, with claws, and a tail with a fin that moved side to side like a fish. Fins at the side – massive – were helping it navigate underwater.

I began squinting, trying to get a better look. I missed Tobias and his hawk eyes, but I thought I also saw things coming out of the side of its mouth – I thought of whiskers, except they moved.

"Wow."

"It looks to be amphibious," Ax said. "Am. Fib. Ee. Us."

"Ax, do we really have to start that again now?"

"Guys. Guys!" I said. "We should see if we can use them for transportation. That lake is massive. We could get miles if we could travel across the water, way faster than walking."

"We could fly."

"Ax – thanks to your discussion earlier, I have news for you. I. Am. Not. Going. Bird."

I essentially agreed with Marco.

"You know, we're not in a hurry, we have three days to five days – and we're pretty sure they're going to this zoo," I said. "We can afford to not morph unless necessary. And preferably? Only morph things that are big."

"We could morph wolf," Ax pointed out. "They are essentially the same size as humans. I doubt much brain matter ends up in Z-Space."

"Yeah," Marco said. "'Doubt' will make me want to morph."

"It's going to be really hot," I said reasonably. "That's a long stretch of desert we're going to be heading into. Not exactly great conditions for wolf running, even if they are faster. But that would be a good option B if we can't get a rid off of these guys."

Ax looked troubled, but he silenced himself.

"What?" I asked. Still trying to stay calm, still trying not to let my irritation with what seemed like a pointless argument to me.

"Well, I am worried about Leah," he admitted. "What we did. Hired work for merchandise and funds."

"Sounds like any other job to me," Marco muttered.

Ax shook his head. "No, it was closer to indentured servitude, or finding some sort of work in the black market," He insisted. "Working to pay off an already existing debt. She has to have a mark of ownership until she leaves Which, the removal of the tattoo seems unlikely to me. I do not exactly trust them to be keeping her well being in mind, or getting her back over to us."

"She did seem a tiny bit funny," Marco admitted. "When she got the tattoo. I thought her eyes dilated for a second. But I mean, she had just walked into the shade. I think. Which would have been normal. But you're right – and they were also very insistent on taking someone not capable of morphing."

Once again, the heaviness settling into my gut.

"It doesn't really matter," I said. "We can't take her back early, we have to pay for the translation chips. We had nothing we could give for the funds. What we need to do is get there and back in less than three days so she doesn't end up having to work more.. It might not be the most comfortable experience, but this wasn't exactly something we could put off. Just three or five days."

"Nine to fifteen human days," Ax corrected gravely.

"Well, let's try to make sure it's only up to nine," I said. I tried to sound completely certain.

I didn't.

But we didn't decide to go back and investigate more, or offer to remove the chips. Instead, we just approached the lake more quickly, more urgently than when we had been talking, being scared by morph horror stories.