Chapter Twelve

The strange thing was how easy it was, after months of barely managing enough hands to manage a spacecraft, to relax underground in this halfway house. We were with Cryhalis, who weren't used to falling asleep every twelve hours or so. So they'd try to explain jokes to us, or teach us some of the games that we had as options. Their business, history, or culture. The decline of literacy in their society, of medical capabilities.

Their recent history hadn't exactly been easy.

Still, time receded. Passed us, and the day outside was shortening. We couldn't afford to rest. But it was also the only rest we would have.

"Prince Jake," Ax said eventually. He hadn't been spending too much time around me, preferring either Marco or the others around us. "It is now a safe environment for flight. We will have a fairly brief window of opportunity."

"Fine," I said. I looked around the area, wondering what would happen if we ended up slowed down for any reason. "Let's get going."

We turned around and headed up the long flight of stairs that had led us to our haven the past seventy-two hours or so. We had decided we would morph owl, and fortunately, it wasn't too bright out for me to question that decision.

It would be about three hours before it would start getting too cold for us to stay out. I was fairly confident we'd be able to make the full distance before the temperature drop – and by then, according to Ax, we would be in a mostly indoor city, one of the few places that was well developed on the planet – part of being the hub of entertainment for travelers.

I kept trying to plan further ahead than that. To get everyone in the clear. Or even just watch everything below me with my superior eyesight as the planet's sun kept setting. But inside, my head just kept churning away, about Jeanette, Santorelli, Menderash. Whether Tobias was holding out, or what would happen if the Kelbrid found him. The people here knew who could morph and who couldn't – but could they tell he wasn't born an Andalite?

If they could, I didn't want to think about what it meant for Ax. I was pretty sure if that was an issue we would have heard about it earlier. In the meantime, I was sending everyone into what could easily develop into a big problem.

No choice now.

Minutes after getting up the staircase and outside, we were in morph and in the air. The flat, dry ground beneath us passed so easily compared to what a few dozen feet had been here or there in the earlier heat of the day. But I could feel the temperature dropping, sinking fairly quickly. By the time night actually hit it was already going to be cold even in owl morph.

After that it would start getting too cold.

Everyone had a polar bear morph, which might have been able to help us – except if none of our morphs could take the heat of the day, I wasn't sure the night would be any better. Even if the polar bear was meant to stay warm in cold weather much more than any of our morphs were built for staying cool in hot weather.

Yes. It might be okay, if we were delayed. Not that I was going to let that happen with news that the Kelbrid were coming this way to try and collect the Andalites they already knew to be there.

‹Hey, I see something.›

I perked up. ‹A building?›

‹Look a little to your left. Whatever it is, it's huge.›

I looked. Mostly what I saw was ambient light – light that seemed to be coming up from the ground, artificial light. But it put most cities I had seen as a kid to shame.

‹It looks massive,› I observed, ‹That could be New York City over there. Or, I don't know, Hong Kong? Bejing? Just... a seriously massive amount of light.›

‹Why don't we see it if it's so large? And why wasn't the city we came from like that? I mean, a place with that amount of light? It isn't exactly lacking in technology.›

‹I believe that there must be a canyon housing the city up ahead, shielding it from our view.›

‹And a lot of worlds don't spread wealth evenly,› I pointed out. ‹Earth's a prime example of exactly that. What we saw back there? This planet's obviously affected by the peoples around it having taken an advantage of their own dark ages... And even then, it's not like what we saw in one place was going to be what we'd see everywhere else. It's not like the wealth is going to be distributed. It might not even be Cryhalis in control, since other species make a habit of turning this area into an entertainment hub.›

‹You've been listening to Leah again, haven't you?›

I sighed. ‹Look, let's just get over there, demorph, have Ax morph human, and figure out how we're going to rescue the people there.›

‹Yeah, about that. Do we have any idea how many people we're trying to rescue? 'Cause that's gonna be a big factor in our general escape plan.›

Oh man. Hadn't exactly thought of that. I winced. ‹Well, we'll have to find out before we make any decisions.›

Marco laughed – not a happy sound.

No one really talked most of the way there. I'd noticed there was just too much quiet time anymore, where I was stuck thinking. Everything around me was awkward silence, even when I thought everyone would be getting along. Should be getting along. But it was more like meeting someone a few years after high school and not being on the same wavelength anymore.

Cassie must have known that, near the end of the war. She'd known there was nothing she could do to stop that. But why me, and not everyone else? It was infuriating, and when I had too much time to think like this, I wanted to react in anger.

I need a hobby, I thought.

I was close enough to see that Ax had indeed been right – the place was built in a canyon, deep and wide. It had probably been a river or something far enough back in history, but now it was just a place that housed buildings that would be entertainment for many alien visitors.

It was a city. A large city, dwarfing most places I had seen when I was a kid – dwarfing a lot of what I had seen even after becoming a celebrity. More amazing? Most of the place seemed to be indoors.

‹The amount of energy necessary to power this area, the amount of energy for controlling the artificial climates? It seems almost beyond anything an Andalite could imagine. Even if we could probably build everything here at a fraction of the energy they are using.›

How they did it? I didn't really know. But it would have put an Earth zoo to shame. I didn't know about the standards zoos on other planets had, but apparently the expectation of zoos in other places really came out ahead.

‹Well, Earth zoos haven't gotten around to kidnapping sapient species yet,› I muttered. I didn't know what the Skrit Na or the Cryhalis or other groups of people that held space-faring animals. But they weren't going to get humans or Andalites on that list, if we could help it.

Cold. It was starting to get really cold. And we were getting fairly close. Close enough.

‹Okay Ax. Marco. Let's get down there, into the canyon, and work on finding what we're looking for.›

‹Yeah, no kidding. I know it's not the Arctic – at least not yet – but seriously, I'm starting to feel that if I don't get warmed up soon I'm going to be a birdsicle.›

First we didn't go down or forward. Everyone went up, gaining altitude. It was tough, there wasn't a thermal or anything else to go on. Still, once we'd gone up, it would be an easy cruise flying down, using gravity to up our speed.

‹That's probably enough,› I said. Everyone began diving, and the speed picked up a lot. Soon enough I found myself landing in front of a large enclosure, one we had found expanding around the whole place.

I was reminded of the Mercora force field that had been put in place to prevent the Nesk from being able to attack them successfully. Even though I knew here, the main brutal force endangering the well-being of this place or the people in it was simply the weather itself.

Marco, Ax and I demorphed. The temperature was dropping faster now, and Marco's teeth chattered. Ax continued morphing until he was human.

"Let's get inside," I said.

We began walking around the perimeter, to where Ax had said at some point he thought the entrance must be. Walking through the cold at this point was more than just a little uncomfortable – it was miserable.

Eventually, though, I saw an entrance, and a place where even spacecraft could enter and dock, at least temporarily. The spacecraft all were kept at the side, not intruding into the controlled environment.

"This place is huge."

"It isn't the largest place I've seen," Ax said easily.

Ax tended toward being completely unable to acknowledge another species' feats – as though he would be disloyal to Andalites by doing so.

I mean, unless it involved food. Andalites don't have mouths, so they can't be competitive about it. They also used to have no qualms with being in the background of fashion – since they're one of many species that doesn't actually wear clothes. Though – a side effect of our cultures interacting – they'd started getting into a few of the things, including jewelry. Some spent a lot of time on Earth since the war with the Yeerks had ended, and a few Andalites had found the custom of clothing near and dear for them to take. Two had actually gone into designing.

It was a strange world.

There was a door, now, an entrance into this large area. After that we just had to find the zoo and get the people being brought in released.

‹Prince Jake! Marco! Get down!› Ax interrupted my thoughts, switching to private thought-speak. It was his default. I ducked, and looked around.

"Up," Marco hissed. He'd seen it before I had.

Above me, a new spacecraft was pulling down. A ship that, in a way, could almost remind you of a Hork-Bajir.

"The Blade Ship."

I felt the adrenalin rush that had been a part of my battle for so many years. It was there. Close, tangible. It didn't have many – if any – of its old passengers. But soon it could be there for the taking.

"Jake, we can't go into battle for the Blade Ship," Marco whispered.

The Blade Ship opened up. I wanted to morph. To kill everything inside, to take the ship and leave.

"They're probably here for the same thing we are."

It was a quick morph away. Why not take it? Take it while it was empty. Or take it while they were distracted with their own mission?

"Prince Jake, what should we do?"

The strange reptilian creature Ax had identified as Kelbrid began to exit, along with a human – or a human-Controller. Apparently The One had some way of keeping things under its control in more ways than just immobility.

"What do we do?"

Ax's voice sounded about the same as I felt: Tortured. It was so hard to see the Blade Ship there and probably unable to do anything.

Hide, try to save the people, and probably miss our chance at the Blade Ship.

Engage now, and try to take the Blade Ship, but maybe endanger the people we knew to be here.

"Could we manage to take the Blade Ship and use it to break in and free the Andalites and humans going to the zoo?"

"Prince Jake, we could not control the Blade Ship enough with three people to get it off the ground."

I nodded. "That's too bad for everyone, then. Keep down."

When I was sure no one else was coming out – when the two who had gotten off of the spacecraft had been gone five minutes, we finally made our way in with our teeth chattering and bodies shivering. Our time was out, and the mission alone had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Sort of just a typical day in the life of an Animorph.