Chapter Eighteen

The Estrella was a beautiful ship.

It kept turbulence and noise to a minimum. Its crew was a little on the small side, still, but it became pretty clear that it had been made for being able to travel and entertain. We kept low, slow, quiet, with every mode in stealth, and while I knew the people looking for us probably wouldn't be fooled with that technology long – at least, not all of them – I couldn't help but marvel at how seamless our integration seemed to be with the environment we were disguised in.

Maybe it wouldn't have looked as clear if I'd been outside looking, as a hawk. But I didn't notice so much as a shrub waving with air currents the ship created from what I could see. What the Andalites and human engineers had done was attempted to create something flawless.

Marco whistled. "This is some sweet flying."

It took a half hour – human time – for us to get to the place the Researcher was. It didn't look like it had been tampered with.

‹Tobias. We are here with the Estrella and its remaining crew. We are here to get you.›

We landed next to the Researcher. Waited. But Tobias never came out.

‹Guys, it is ridiculously hot outside. I'd practically expect the sand to turn to glass. I'm going to have to wait unless you know how to get me over there.›

I had forgotten – it was past midday, and we had hours before it would be cool enough for Tobias to be outside even a short period of time. The temperature in this area was nowhere near mild enough for a human or Andalite to be outdoors, unlike the city we'd dropped Leah off at.

Or at least, there isn't a way for us to get around the heat here, unlike over there.

"Can we get him over here safely?"

Kat shook her head. "We don't have anything for life forms as large as an Andalite. For those things, we have to get out and collect our own data."

"So we have to wait."

I didn't like the idea of sitting and waiting. It left a lot of hope lying in whether or not the Kelbrid and The One would also be forced to wait, whether the Cryhalis would also be waiting. But other than the Kelbrid the evidence was on our side: We knew The One couldn't tolerate severe heat and dry-weather conditions.

The Cryhalis lived in cooler areas, indoors, or underground. So they would probably wait for dusk.

The Kelbrid, the biggest question mark, were the only things that might be able to tolerate intense heat. Even so, the chances of them tolerating this amount of heat was unlikely.

"How long?"

Lahsailat and Jaela looked at their information a short while. ‹Two or three of your hours. We are not far from this planet's dusk, at the moment. The atmosphere is already beginning to cool for the night, and will begin so much more rapidly by that time.›

I remembered, from the trip to the Cryhali zoo, that it had gone from intense heat to intense cold very quickly. When it cooled enough for us to be outside, we wouldn't have a long window.

"Marco," Kat said, "Keep a close eye on radar and other information that might alert us to people coming out own way. It will be able to filter out most stealth systems – at least, it wouldn't be fooled by Andalite technology."

Ax snorted. ‹Then what would fool it?›

"The point is unless they have a more sophisticated stealth system than Andalites have managed to develop for our defense system, we'll know they're coming before they're here."

I nodded. It made sense. Marco set the detection systems on.

"So," Marco said, "Three hours. What do we do?"

Kat smiled. "I show you newcomers the ship's systems, capabilities, and entertainment. By the time we get through that I'm sure you'll have a few things you'd like to do."

‹We could play that human game. The Apples to Apples game.› Lahsailat said excitedly.

"Apples to Apples?"

Lahsailat goggled at Marco with all four of her eyes. Jaela laughed in our heads, and tapped Lahsailat's tail blade with her own. She blinked, snapping out of her disbelieving stupor.

"Ooookay, we'd better put this on the 'to do' list for after we get out of here," Kat said, grabbing us by the arms. She brought down her voice to a quiet whisper as we walked away from the bridge, back toward the end of the Estrella. "Don't act like you don't know what Apples to Apples is around Lahsailat. She's obsessed."

"It's cool, actually. Ax had his own thing about Cinnabon. The Cinnamon Buns, to be exact."

"Don't forget These Messages."

"The Young and Restless."

"All My Children."

Kat stared at us. "How did he ever get back into Andalite culture? He sounds like he got stuck in a soccer mom morph."

"Trust me," I told her, "We always wondered the same thing. But he's got tons of Andalite pride."

"Ah."

"And Lahsailat? Jaela? You never get any 'arrogant Andalite' out of them?"

Kat laughed. "Well, a bit, but not nearly as much as I'd seen from other Andalites. They're sort of Andalite expatriates. I mean, they decided to stay on Earth and have largely taken part as citizens in the United States."

I was flabbergasted.

"How long have we been away from Earth?" Marco looked about the same as I felt.

Kat looked at us. "I'm not sure, I don't know how long I've been gone. But when I left you guys had been missing nearly three years."

Obviously, we had gone into space knowing that any trip we had would be a long one. We'd known that we probably wouldn't be coming home, even. And we knew The One had drained up to a few months of our lives just within the context of that dream-world we had escaped.

Still, hearing we had actually been gone that one, that years were passing by. It made the whole situation seem more real.

Kat could tell she had hit a soft spot. "Don't worry about it right now, let's continue through the ship."

So we walked down the corridors – a set-up that clearly had some Star Trek and other common sci-fi concepts in its structure and layout. I wasn't too surprised that what had been our ideal of space architecture had managed to whittle itself out into the styles of actual human spacecraft.

For a while we went to the very back, to speak with Caleb and Sam for a while regarding the technology and computers. Making our way back up and exploring different areas – sleeping quarters, relaxation areas, where food was stored, restrooms, and finally to education and entertainment – Kat introduced us to some of the educational technology she had been mentioning before, as well as the games and movies.

"We can watch things together, on a screen and audio system that is shared," She said, "But we can also use these helmets. The helmets are great if you can't come to a shared decision, but honestly we try to only use them for the educational programs. They're pretty annoying, otherwise."

"How do they work for education?"

"Well, okay, say you want to learn Spanish," Kat handed me the helmet and I put it on.

"Okay, Spanish."

Suddenly, it turned on. I was in a place of virtual reality.

"This is awesome."

"What do you want to learn?"

"Food?"

The scene around me shifted, and I was suddenly in a marketplace. The signs read "Bienvenido" and I suddenly saw signs dictating different types of meat, fruits, and vegetables. The visual was so real, I could almost smell and touch the items around me, whether they were apples or fish. Manzanas, or pescado.

"This is amazingly cool."

Kat pulled the helmet off again. "You can do this later, for now..."

The screen for entertainment came down, and she pulled out some games I hadn't seen in a long time.

"You're kidding, right? Dreamcast? What happened to being all advanced and ahead of our time?"

"Try telling that to Sam and Caleb. They love the new technology, but they never gave up on old games, either. Besides, Sam loves dolphins."

She grinned and pulled out a game with a dolphin protagonist. Ecco The Dolphin: Defender of the Future.

Marco grinned and rolled his eyes. Even I had to sigh a little. But then she began showing us more: the system was capable of handling games from more recent and older game systems, even some computer games.

"God, Jake, do you remember this one? Lemmings?"

I didn't, not really, but was easily amused at the graphics.

Kat let us keep checking out what it offered for a while before showing us how to navigate films, television shows, music. Then, she showed us the drawers that had been installed to hold older-style entertainment. Decks of cards, board games, and other items.

"This is an excellent setup. There's enough here to keep a group of people entertained for a long, long time."

"Exactly. But for now," Kat grabbed the Apples to Apples game, "We should probably go and give Lahsailat and Jaela a few rounds of this before they blow a gasket."

There wasn't too much time left for fun and games. But since no one had heard any trouble from the bridge, we knew there probably wasn't too much to worry about. And there was still almost another full hour before we could begin moving out to get Tobias and Leah.