Chapter Nine

These amphibious guys were huge. And, as it turned out, intelligent. They called themselves Gorasheels. Getting this information from a local Cryhali, Marco, Ax, and I took turns finding ones to attempt to speak with until the translator chips kept working.

Marco and I, to accomplish this, had to morph. To make things easier, we morphed each other – still human, still roughly the same size – but able to use thought-speak for the Gorasheels, who did not possess translator chips.

"I better not come back with less mass than I started with," I teased, pushing Marco.

"Ha," Marco said, "As if. I just hope my large, intelligent, perceptive brain doesn't get smashed out in space because it couldn't all fit into your tiny skull."

So we began speaking to the Gorasheels, everyone taking breaks as needed – Ax of course having to find solitude to prevent attracting attention as an Andalite. Eventually, we understood what they were saying as much as we were – though it took a while to deal with speaking with creatures that were constantly swimming deep undersater and back up again.

They were heavily against the use of self-aware, intellectual animals being imprisoned in zoos – which was apparently a big problem out in space where various peoples visited other planets openly for entertainment. A bonus for us, when we'd managed to finish conveying what we were trying to accomplish.

So one of them, Nunhabju, agreed to give us a ride across the vast lake – which would take us eighteen of our thirty miles.

It was a nice chunk of our distance cut.

The amphibious skin of Nunhabju – and the general desire not to cause disrespect – left us trying to find a way to harness a boat to her instead. Ax apologized.

"There is no shame in chores for the greater good," she insisted. "Our own people had many issues in the past with zoos taking us in."

"We have occasionally let people ride on us while in horse morph," Ax said, putting in an anecdote. "And I had to carry Leah once almost as a horse. And Andalites often ride on Earth in horse trailers instead of demanding newly fitted transportation on Earth."

"Yeah," I said, but I still felt unsettled. I couldn't quite name what I was feeling for a while. Then...

Eventually, we gave up one day's funds for food to rent something that could be used as a harness and an attached boat. When we brought it over, Nunhabju could put it on herself.

"What I'm sorry about – it's not what we're doing. We have permission," I said finally. "And it is for a good cause. But... I mean, look. It's not that we're using something made for pets, or because we're temporarily a pet, that happens to conveniently help us do something else when a new species comes in. This harness – it was made for Gorasheels, wasn't it? It's something that was made specifically to take advantage of them. By other species living or visiting here. We're not using it that way, but we're still benefitting from these things."

"Yes, unfortunately," Ax admitted.

Marco, quiet. I wasn't sure if he really understood what I was finding troubling. Though, more likely, he might have actually been able to take what I was thinking and put it into more logical words. And even if he did understand – or agreed – it didn't stop it from being the best way to get the job done without morphing.

We remained demorphed while Ax spoke with Nunhabju. He kept asking her things about Gorasheel history, and he kept inquiring the conditions of Cryhali history as well. Since he was using thought-speak, Nunhabju wasn't really aware of when he was morphed or not – probably better for her sake as well as ourselves. We kept pretty quiet so she didn't get too involved with Marco and I using "mouth-sounds" as Ax would call it while Ax himself used thought-speak only.

We were quietly chatting about the things we missed most on Earth – mainly focused around food – and even though we'd tune in once in a while we mostly weren't paying attention to their conversation. Marco and I were easily bored with a conversation we couldn't participate in, and morphing when we didn't already need to be in morph like Ax was a waste of energy.

Eventually, though, Ax uttered a dumfounded, concerned and enraged, "What?"

"What?" Marco and I hissed, but he hushed us. He continued on in thought-speak while motioning for us to listen to what Nunhabju was saying.

‹Could you repeat that?› he stressed urgently. ‹About the work force and the slave trade?›

Nunhabju gurgled for a minute, passing water through her body to speak more easily – to help us hear she was having to do more talking than she normally would have above water, which was obviously uncomfortable and difficult for her as an amphibian adapted for being in deeper water.

"The slave force," she intoned, "Is one of the many terrible things that has been wrong with this planet since it went into its cultural dark ages. The black market thrived, and one of the things often done is trading items for work. However, they never leave once they go in. What starts off as a job in exchange for goods? Slavery, in the end, much like our own people sometimes are captured and forced to work as dumb animals."

‹But how do they keep them there?› Ax pushed. ‹They do not come alone if they are travelers. How do they force people to stay.›

"The drug, Bushtu. It is highly addictive, very strong. Usually a very small dose is crept in at first, which placates. Then, during their work service, they simply introduce more and more into their work diets, drinks, and much more. When one of us is captured, it is often done with a few loaded needles. By the time a party comes back for their friend or family, they will often hide themselves, or claim they wish to keep working at the house."

My blood ran cold. Ax looked sick. Marco, shocked.

"Oh, no," Marco said. "The tattoo. I thought her reaction was weird."

"I thought she was just afraid of needles and relieved that the tattoo was over," I said, ashamed. "They didn't want people who could morph to work. They were making sure whoever got the treatment couldn't morph to lose the drug without the withdrawal effects."

‹How addictive is this drug? The side effects for being withdrawn from it?› Ax asked.

"The side effects of being taken off the drug," she said, "Can be quite terrible. In some cases, deadly – the Cryhalis that do this can make money on those who do manage to leave – pay to get occasional supplies of the drug, if being without it is not possible for the person who was on it. The way it is done by those in the Cryhali culture the first dose itself is so overpowering that there will be at least some terrible side effect from prolonged drug absence. Did you have a friend you submitted to work in order to pay for your things?"

‹Yes,› Ax said.

"They already received a tattoo?"

‹Yes, she did.›

Guilt ran through my whole body. Ax was blaming himself, obviously. Leah was too busy trying to be useful to throw in her advice. I remembered how nervous she had been earlier. Of course. She'd studied people, anthropology, while controlled by Essat. One of the few subjects she'd bothered learning. She'd known there was going to be some sort of trouble – maybe even had guessed the type of trouble – but she'd gone on anyway, to try and be useful.

"Then my advice," Nunhabju said, "Is finish your mission. She is already addicted. But come back early and keep a close eye on her so that you may know where she is if they encourage her to hide. If she tries to stay, take her by force if you cannot convince her to at least walk you to the ship you came from."

‹Thank you for the advice,› Ax answered gratefully, for all of us.

"Ax," I said, "I feel bad for Leah. But I think she knew something was up going in."

‹Of course,› he snapped.

"So," Marco said, "She'll probably at least know enough to go back with us, right?"

‹The problem is, it seems to be a physiologically and psychologically addicting drug. Or at least, potentially physiologically and psychologically addicting drug. She may not be able to survive off of it when we get her off,› Ax grated. ‹And she keeps doing completely terrible things like this thinking she will prove herself useful and not childlike.›

You knew he was really mad, because instead of talking verbally he'd completely reverted back to using thought-speak.

"Yeah," Marco said. "I mean, if she'd known something was up, she could have told us and we would have simply used our morphing powers to steal the translator chips and save the crew of that human prototype craft."

"Well, we don't know for sure that would have worked," I said. "And we don't know for sure that she knew exactly what was going on. I think it's likely she had a few concerns she should have suggested."

I was mad too. But I decided I'd worry about it after we successfully got her back. And preferably off this Bushtu drug.

"She was trying to keep us safe," I muttered.

"Yeah, isn't it hilarious?" Marco said darkly. "The newbie non-morpher offering her life and well-being. To protect the practically invincible morph-capable team members, as proved time and time again from past battles. Honestly, we need to make some sort of manual."

‹Definitely,› Ax breathed. Marco and I giggled. The situation wasn't funny, but apparently it was too late to do anything about it – and so we had to laugh at Ax saying something in his most human-like tones.

And, our ride quickly dwindling, we continued planning out how to obtain the prototype ship and crew while also hoping to best plan the attack for getting Leah away from the place she would probably never want to leave by the time we came back.