Chapter 16

It was an Andalite. There was no mistaking that.

My first instinct was total panic. Okay, that was my second instinct. My first was awestruck stupidity. My brain was so fried by that point, I just had no ability to put new information into any kind of context. Hey, an Andalite… and nothing else. It took an embarrassingly long time before it clicked that this was a bad thing, but I put two and two together, that Andalite plus Yeerks equals clusterfuck.

I had a rush of emotions.

They had captured Elfangor. What were they going to do to him? Where were my friends? Were they dead?

Before I could reign in my emotions, I heard the thought-speech inside my mind.

*You believe the pilot is still at large?* the voice said.

I froze. This was not Elfangor. This was another Andalite.

One of the reptile monsters said something in its own native language. It was then that I realized how weird English must sound to Elfangor, because I knew what the alien was saying even though the actual vocalizations were nothing I could understand. It had a language a mix of bird sounds, toad croaks, and hisses. It was like a crocodile trying to mimic whale songs or something. But the thought-speech element of Andalite technology compensated immediately.

"No reason to think dead," I understood, "Should look continue."

I didn't understand it perfectly, of course. But as the creature spoke, I at least understood its intentions and got the idea of what he was saying. There was no reason to think the pilot was dead. They should continue the search.

*It would be a waste of resources,* the Andalite said. *One lone survivor poses no appreciable risk at present.*

The creature seemed to disagree. "Security not prepared morph. Vulnerable. Filters now."

The Andalite seemed to process that for a minute. *Tactically, I do not foresee any danger. But I see your point. Let engineering know the installation of bio-filters is now first priority. That will take weeks, if not months. In the interim, reset all the security codes. All zero-space communications must be run through Level Nine encryption. Phase Six will be suspended until further notice.*

"Yes, Visser."

I didn't know what visser meant, but it seemed like this Andalite was their direct superior. And that meant the Andalite I was watching had to be a Controller.

An Andalite-Controller…

The alien entourage continued down the concourse, and they either left my thought-speech range or I was too mentally fried to notice I was still hearing them. I felt sick in my soul. I couldn't do this.

I didn't consciously decide to leave because I needed to demorph or because I needed to report to Elfangor and the others. I ran because I was done. I'd hit a mental wall, and I was past my ability to handle this.

A week ago my biggest trials were cleaning public bathrooms at the movie theater or studying for trig tests. I had been scared to ask a beautiful girl out on a date. And yet I'd agreed to accept alien technology to run recon and infiltration missions for Elfangor. I don't know what made me think I could handle this. I needed out, and I needed out now.

I tore down the concourse as fast as my lizard body could manage. There were more forklifts here, more pallets of scuba tanks. I had to assume they were for the worms and their breathing packs. They were sure as hell going through a ton of those tanks, and that hinted at a population of worms I didn't want to think about. The less than twenty or so I'd seen had been enough to convince me there was no God, so imagining hundreds or thousands of them was more than I could process.

I found the hallway I'd come through with Chapman.

I wished I had been braver. I wished I had the time and mental fortitude to go back and check on Chapman. But I didn't want to stay here anymore. And even as freaked out as I was, I was still sure Chapman was exactly where I left him. That was more sad than reassuring though. I imagined him just lying there, forgotten. He didn't actively serve any purpose to the Yeerk invasion right now, and he meant nothing to them till the slug made its way back into his brain.

Scampering down the hallway was uneventful, but still creepy. There were people moving through the hallway, some coming from the elevator and some heading toward it. I wish I'd paid more attention to the unconscious bodies in those stretchers as I'd gone through earlier. I'd been trying to avoid thinking about it, at the time, but now I was wondering if these were the same people that had been here when I'd first gone through. Would that make me feel better or worse if they were?

I had gotten very used to keeping to the walls and overhead rigging rather than the floor, and with this many feet, I was glad I wasn't down there. I slipped into the elevator easily enough, hiding on the ceiling.

I don't remember leaving the elevator. I don't remember going back out the hangar door. I don't remember climbing the side of the building to the roof.

My next conscious memory was of the late afternoon sun, the warmth of the sun, the sounds of aircraft engines. I heard though-speak voices, but I didn't hear the words. I didn't answer their questions. I just let the sun soak into my lizard scales, glad to be warm, glad of the taste of the dust in the air.

I was only distantly aware of the fact that I was demorphing. I felt my body growing, felt the world rapidly come into focus as my visual acuity returned to normal, saw the colors shift as I lost the ultraviolet sensitivity of the lizard eyes. I was crouched in all black, bike shorts and a surf shirt a little too small for me. I kept my head down, and just sat there for a minute.

I was physically exhausted. I had been down there more than an hour and a half, I suspected, and I'd pushed the inches-long lizard body to cover a staggering relative distance in that time. Between the fifty-minute flight to get here, demorphing and remorphing to lizard mode, and now finally back to human, I'd given as much as I could. My bones were tired, my muscles felt like pudding, and all I wanted was to sleep, to forget.

I'd done it because it was my responsibility, because I was curious, because I was scared and angry and confused. But now none of those reasons made any fucking sense.

*Jake!* I heard suddenly. *Jake, are you okay, dude?*

Marco. Marco was calling me. I waved a hand and pitched over. I wasn't capable of doing this. I couldn't.

*Jake, man, I know you're wiped, but you need to go back to bird, okay? We can't stay on this roof. We have to go.*

Go. Yes, go. Go home, go to sleep. I staggered, wavered, and rolled again. I couldn't get my muscles to work, I couldn't concentrate enough to speak. I just… I had to get home. I don't know how I found the energy to morph to raven, but I did. Maybe I was scared enough of this place that exhaustion just didn't matter anymore. Maybe I was still in the autopilot mode that had brought me back to the roof. I don't know, and I don't really care.

I was flying south before my friends could say anything else.

*Jake?* I heard Cassie call. *Jake, honey, you're scaring me. You're scaring your girlfriend.*

Girlfriend. Somehow that word brought me back. Cassie was my girlfriend. Cassie, the girl I'd been scared to ask, who knew me as well as anyone. She was there and she was scared.

*I… I'm not okay,* I said.

*Yeah, Jake, we can see that much,* Rachel said. There was sarcasm there, but she'd used the kid-glove saccharine tone she usually reserved for talking to her younger sisters. She was trying to be normal and reassuring simultaneously. That was… actually it was very Rachel of her.

*I saw some shit, guys* I said, trying to keep it together. *I'm exhausted, I'm freaked, and I know I'm going to have to give all of you the play-by-play of what I saw. But… Let's get to the beach, okay? I want as much distance between us and that place as we can get.*

Chili dogs are not a health food.

I know that, you know that, anyone that's ever smelled one knows they're unhealthy. I don't care if you get tofu dogs on gluten-free buns with vegan chili sauce, somehow it'd still be unhealthy. Tofu is simply congealed sadness, gluten-free bread is also goes by the name polystyrene, and vegan chili is… well, that's still chili. It's beans, tomato, and onion. It's just chili without meat or beef stock.

But damn if they aren't delicious.

We'd gotten them to go. I was still freaked out even after we'd gotten back to the Boardwalk, but I didn't want to stall any longer than I had. I'd done the lizard thing, but all of us had still flown to San Jose and back, and they had all done three consecutive morphs, too. No one questioned that I was the most exhausted. And no one disagreed with the idea of food before home.

We had flown back in relative silence. There was no talk about sneaking in to football games or concerts. My friends had given me my space. Cassie had flown next to me, our flight feathers brushing briefly - the closest thing ravens could do to holding hands - but she didn't say anything, didn't push.

Elfangor was waiting in the SUV for us and if he had an opinion on chili dogs and fries, he said nothing.

We went to the Santa Cruz Public Library. It was actually only a few buildings down from the Regal 9 where I worked with Marco, and Cassie and Rachel were sharing their study alibi. The literal second Cassie got home, she'd have to do her afternoon chores, do the things she usually did, and then on top of that spend the night doing the homework she said she already got done. All of us were in similar situations.

Rachel ran into the library while Cassie distributed chili dogs to Marco, Tobias, and I. She came out two minutes later with two books, handing them one to Cassie while she took the offered chili dog.

I usually don't have food in the SUV, but right then, I didn't care.

Elfangor was sitting in a cardboard box, the same cardboard box Cassie had used to transport him the other day.

"Is morphing always this taxing?" I asked.

"Having morphed that hawk as many time in a row as I did," Tobias said, "I'm inclined to say yes."

*Like anything else, the skill improves with practice.*

"I think I've had enough practice for the time being," I said.

"Seconded," Marco added.

"Jake?" Cassie asked. She didn't say anything else, just had a look in her eyes like she wanted to ask something but wasn't sure how.

"I know. I'm sorry for stalling. I needed to clear my head and I was starving. But you're right, I have to do this."

I told them about the infestation room and the tanks, how they put his head in the liquid, the medical efficiency of the whole process. I told them there had to be hundreds of people just parked like cars in a garage.

"They'd have to have hospital staff to pull that off, right" Cassie asked.

"That'd make sense," Marco said. "Who better to help build a human infestation area than the people that know the most about human biology."

"So that means we can add nurses, doctors, and especially neurologists to the list of high-value Controllers, huh?" Tobias said.

"How did they build something like that, though?" Rachel asked. "I mean, the logistics of something like that would be mind-boggling."

*For human construction, that is likely true. But Yeerks could use Dracon beams to excavate the space itself, and use human technology where applicable.*

"What about the energy grid?" Marco asked. "How are they getting electricity, water, whatever, down there with no one noticing?"

*Yeerk technology includes a design of z-space transducer that would allow them considerable power independent of your human electrical grid. Freshwater is likely produced through desalination of underground oceanic intake pipes. They most likely have surface ventilation points, but the majority of their oxygen could be obtained through electrolysis.*

"Electrolysis?" Tobias asked. "I thought that was hair removal."

Rachel laughed. "No, he means running current through water to separate it into hydrogen and oxygen."

"So they could be using the hydrogen as fuel or selling it to fund other facets of the facility," I said.

Marco nodded. "Pound for pound, hydrogen has three times the energy potential as petroleum. Electrolysis isn't generally cost effective given the electrical demands, but if the Yeerks have next-gen power potential, they'd definitely be able to turn water into money."

The speculations of how the Yeerks operated went on for a little while, and then I told them about the giant worms, the meat coming in on rails, the spattering slime.

"Holy fuck, dude. What are those things?" Tobias asked.

*Taxxons.* All of us looked at the osprey sitting in the cardboard box. *Taxxons come from a very harsh world, with little vegetation. The autotrophs of their world are similar to the deep-world extremophile organisms found on your planet. They are moderately intelligent, sentient, and had a complex hive society before Yeerk conquest.*

"They look evil," I said.

*Evil is a relative concept. They are a ravenous species, and even Yeerks are known to struggle to contain their baser instincts. But while ravenous, they are not necessarily wanton. They are simply always hungry.*

"Why would the Yeerks want something that hard to control?" Rachel asked.

*In truth, the Yeerks sought the mineral resources of their planet. Iron, neodymium, and heavier elements. The Taxxon world boasts one of the most ore-heavy crusts of all known planets.*

"And giant killer worms were just a bonus for them," Marco said bitterly.

"What about the other ones?" I asked. I described the dinosaur monsters as best as I could.

*Hork-Bajir,* Elfangor said. *Despite their fearsome appearance, they are by nature gentle creatures.*

"Seriously?" I asked.

*The Yeerks make of them the monsters they appear. But they are herbivores from a heavily forested planet. They lived among the largest trees ever discovered. It was a beautiful planet.*

"Was?" Cassie asked.

*The Hork-Bajir Conflict was a major chapter in the ongoing Andalite-Yeerk war, but sadly much of the forest valley was destroyed. The Andalite military failed to save the Hork-Bajir. It was one of our greatest losses in recent memory.*

I wondered how to bring up the last part. I couldn't find anyway to ask with tact, and I was too tired to care about being indelicate.

"I saw an Andalite-Controller."

Everyone stopped. Chili dripped from Tobias's hot dog into the paper basket. The frozen expressions seemed confused and stunned, just as I'd been when I'd seen it.

*That is not possible,* Elfangor said.

"There were a bunch of Taxxons and Hork-Bajir walking through a corridor. The Andalite was asking about any signs of the pilot. He told the Hork-Bajir to discontinue the search party for you. Something about installing bio-filters. They called him 'Visser,' but I'm not sure what that means."

*Visser… It's… It's a word to describe their generals or chieftains. Vissers are generally numbered, and there are subvissers as well. You… Jake, you are sure you saw an Andalite-Controller?*

"Elfangor, I wouldn't make something like that up. That's what scared me so badly coming out. I thought they'd found one of your missing survivors and given him over to a high-ranking Yeerk."

Elfangor became agitated, his feathers fluffed and hackled. I felt his anger burning in my own mind, the fear. He said nothing though.

"Elfangor," I said. "I had a pretty strong denial reaction to the idea of human-Controllers. I didn't want to believe it when you'd told us. But I'm not trying to upset you, here. I'm just telling you what I saw down there and we need you rational."

The feathers relaxed, and Elfangor's osprey faced turned in several directions. It took a beat before he could make eye contact.

*You are right, Jake. I do need to be rational. And I am in denial, but not for the reasons you think.*

"Okay," Cassie said. "So talk to us. What's upsetting you?"

*Years ago, when the Andalite military first became aware of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, a scouting party was sent to assess the Yeerk operation. The mission was partially successful, enough to stagnate the Yeerk operations - or so we were told.*

"Yeah, the facility I saw doesn't look very stagnated."

*Actually, Jake, it does.*

"What do you mean?" Rachel snapped. "Jake said that place was huge."

*Yes, but the concentration of resources, the level of development described, it sounds like the Yeerks have invested years of time and effort in that facility. The Yeerk invasion is larger that Andalite intelligence had known, but for now it seems that the Yeerk invasion has not expanded.*

"You don't know that," Marco said. "There could be another facility like that in New York, Beijing, Dubai. What makes you think that's the only Yeerk pool on Earth?"

*No, I don't. But the concentration of resources indicates that the Yeerk invasion has limitations. Neither in the Hork-Bajir campaign nor the Taxxon campaign did Yeerks create the elaborate facilities Jake described. Their usual tactics are to expand.*

"So they're running a slower invasion," Tobias said. "You cut off their supply routes or whatever the hell the Andalites did last time, and they went to great lengths to keep this invasion a secret so the Andalites didn't send more military."

*An astute observation.*

"But," he continued, "what the hell does that have to do with the Andalite-Controller Jake saw down there?"

*The Andalite mission took casualties. We assumed he was killed in action, but the fallout of the scouting mission prevented any attempt to confirm. But if he survived, Prince Alloran has been on Earth for more than a decade. And that means the Yeerks have had an Andalite host with intricate knowledge of our military campaigns for years.*