Disclaimer: I still don't own anything.

Chapter Nine.

I walked around the slope.

I didn't do much. I talked to Inest. I'm no teacher, but she didn't seem to need one. She just listened to the way I spoke and mimicked the structure and rhythm of my words.

She loved to learn.

These aliens, these people. They were intelligent, that much was obvious. Intelligent and curious, and far more friendly than aliens usually were. And strange. Strange that they bore such a resemblance to Earth's own creatures.

All so strange.

But, like I said, I ignored this weird fact. The universe was a huge place, right? Trees appeared all over the place, didn't they? Surely some ecosystem out there had to spit out a creature that looked like something you'd find on Earth. To tell the truth, it was kind of comforting to find an alien species which didn't look so crazy it made you gawp.

You know, like seven-foot bladed monsters with T-rex feet. Or rat-sized brain-stealing slugs.

I talked to Inest, a little. Much less than she'd have liked. But with half my mind on the problems I'd been thinking about, and the other half –okay, more like three-quarters –on the happiness around me, I didn't really have much I could say. Good grief, half of what I did say was either rambling about Earth's flora and fauna or short comments on Inest's people.

The slope, so near the peak of the mountain, was beautiful, covered with green grass and scattered with flowers. There were animals in the woods, a stream winding among the trees a short walk down.

Yes, beautiful. The sunlight turned golden as the sun sank, and with all of them, yellow-furred and happy, still running around, chasing each other, laughing their chuk-chuk-chuk laugh, they made me think again of the park the Chee had built under the city.

It was almost amusing, what was lying beneath my town. The Yeerks had built a hell down there, and the Chee had constructed heaven.

Two underground worlds: One all bare rock and cages and screams, the other the essence of the countryside on a beautiful summer's day. One so huge and solid that you felt daunted when you entered it; the other calming, happy, so wonderful that it took away, however briefly, whatever sorrow you had.

So different. Heaven and hell, yet both built under our feet. Side by side.

I was getting tired, again. And, as the sun dropped towards the horizon, I saw them starting to gather into the loose, large group I'd seen before.

I walked back down the path, to the cave I'd started to think of as, if not home, then my 'base'.

This time, I didn't fall over.

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I curled up on my rock ledge, wrapped the blanket around me, and slept.

I slept quite well, surprisingly. But all through my dreams, the nagging question chased me. It made me think of golden skies, orange blood, of pink-and-silver trees.

I woke up with a metal and ivory face fading from my brain, and a word whispering in my ears…

Friend.

It wasn't yet dawn. I got up, shrugged off the blanket, gasped at the cold air, and walked outside, the icy rock freezing my bare feet.

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten. It made the clouds stand like wispy white ghosts against the dark night sky.

I walked up the path, to the bare crown of the mountain. Dew brushed off the grass onto my skin.

A kind of small structure –rather like a tent –was standing not far away. One of the aliens was sitting outside it, her legs folded back under her body. Another was standing beside her, his arm resting on her shoulder. They looked up as I got closer, and smiled their infectious full-face smiles.

We couldn't understand each other's language, but I realized we didn't need to. There was no need to use words. Our bodies and purposes spoke for themselves. There was no need for talking, in the shared peace of the early day.

It was enough that we were there.

I gazed at the lightening sky and allowed my thoughts to drift. To my home. To my life. It was a pretty good life, I saw that now. I mean, yeah, it could be creepy, and scary, and downright dangerous. And, yeah, I didn't like killing, or coming within a hair of death myself.

But I had my friends. I had Rachel, insane, wonderful Rachel. I had Marco, and Tobias, and Ax, and my parents, who'd cared for me and loved me and brought me up to care for life in all its various forms. I had Jake, who loved me. I had the magnificent, sweeping landscape of Earth. And, even with all its attendant dangers, I had the power to morph.

I closed my eyes and felt the breeze on my face.

I knew what it was like to fly, to glide. To ride the thermals in the shape of a bird. To soar free over all of this. To brush the bellies of the clouds.

I had so much more than other people did.

I also had an empty stomach. So I headed off down the hill to raid a couple of blackberry bushes.

The berries filled my stomach with food and my mind, once more, with questions.

These people, these aliens, had taken me in. But I knew very little about them. Their anatomy was alien, strange, but not terribly so. They used a vocal language which, in tone and rhythm, echoed the structure of human speech –very different to the guttural, harsh Hork-Bajir tongue. They seemed to have no fear, but rather than springing from absolute confidence, this lack of fear seemed rooted in their not understanding the meaning of 'attack'.

Which led to the question…what were they?

I couldn't ask outright. I didn't think they'd understand me, and they might not give me an honest answer. Or any answer at all. And if they did give me an answer, there was no guarantee that I'd know what it meant. Or that it would be a full answer.

But I wanted a clue. So, while the day was young and most of them were probably sleeping, I casually wandered off around the peak of the mountain to see if I could spot their ship. Their mysterious, nearly-invisible ship.

It wasn't particularly difficult.

They'd sunk it into the side of the mountain, into the soft earth. Visible from many angles, but concealed from below by the trees that pressed against its flanks. Whatever shielding they'd used to hide it from prying eyes was gone. I could see it clearly.

It was incredibly familiar.

I'd last seen something like it a year ago.

Big. Green. Lying on the seabed, five kilometers down. Visible as a huge, faintly glowing Snoopy to the eyes of the giant squid.

A Pemalite ship.