Mrs. Treet remained in the kitchen to take care of Joey. Bryce and Mister Treet took me into the basement. We told Joey we were moving some things around before Bryce had to go to school and surprisingly it worked.
"He has to be the most cooperative eight year-old I've ever met," I commented. "My cousin could use lessons from him."
Bryce giggled.
There was nothing outwardly strange about the basement. Boxes and totes lined the walls. Some marked, like Joey's baby clothes. Others were blank, but from the red and green color scheme I would have guessed Christmas decorations. Like the kitchen and the living room upstairs, it was easy to believe that the Chee could raise a human boy without raising any suspicions.
Mister Treet led us to a tool bench in the front of the basement. Hammers, screwdrivers and a tape measure lined a peg board over the bench. He turned to look at me.
"Now you've seen quite a bit," he said. "But Erek is telling us that you would like everything in larger doses."
"How do you-oh, that's right. He's talking to you on your network."
"That's correct."
"It must be great to have a chat room inside your head."
Mr. Treet smiled, patiently, reminding me of Erek.
"Are you ready for this?"
Something in his tone made me think that I wasn't ready for it. But, I was here. And an opportunity to learn anything that could help me wasn't going to wait for me to get in touch with my feelings. I nodded.
Mr. Treet reached for the tape measure and turned it, clockwise. There was a gentle lurch, like the movement of an elevator going down. My heart raced when I realized that the floor where we were standing was doing just that; going down.
"How far down does this go?" I asked.
Not, wow, it's an elevator in your basement. How far down it goes was the most relevant question. I guess after finding out that the kid who has been sitting in the same math class as I am is an android in his spare time, the elevator thing just sort of made sense to me.
And come on, be honest. A secret elevator is kind of cool, isn't it?
"We're going to about thirty feet below sea level," Bryce answered.
That made sense too. I mean, I took his word for it on the depth thing. But the fact that it was a nice round number like thirty made sense to me. Strange, I know.
When we stopped moving, it was like being transported into Willy Wonka's secret dog park. Where I expected to see a ceiling was a clear blue sky. Sunlight from an invisible source spilled onto a large grassy plain, filled with trees, bushes, stone walkways and benches. I even saw a river spilling into a kind of pond, though damned if I knew where it was coming from.
"Is this all an illusion?" I asked.
"Some of it," Bryce said. "The sunlight and the sky for example, but the grass is genuine and the trees. The pond and river is created by a little Pemalite technology and the stone walkways and benches were built by Chee who are playing woodworkers and landscapers."
"Playing…" I looked at Bryce and Mr. Treet. "So you guys take different parts. You live a certain life for a time and then you just change who you are like you change clothes."
Mr. Treet chuckled.
"It's not quite that simple," he said. "In the early days you could just walk to the next town and be someone else. Now we have to have a death sometime during our human lifespan that can be verified by those who know us. But you get the idea."
They led me to a bench and asked me to sit down. I heard barking and watched as two men played fetch with a golden retriever. Closer to the lake a basset hound and a German shepherd frolicked in the water while a woman and a younger boy called to them and laughed.
I assumed the people were all Chee. Every few feet or so was a Chee playing, grooming or feeding a dog, or a group of dogs.
"You look like dogs in real life," I said, watching the others play. "Was that what these…Pemalites looked like?"
"I told you he'd figure it out before we told him," Bryce said to Mr. Treet smugly, as if he had won a bet. He sat on the bench next to me. "The Pemalites looked very similar to us. We were created to be companions, friends to our masters. Our world looked very similar to this," –he waved his arm to indicate the park—, "Although the gravity was much more powerful. It took some getting used to when we first arrived on Earth."
One of the dogs, a large Rottweiler bounded over to me and sniffed at my shoes. I reached out for it and paused, looking up at Mr. Treet.
"May I?"
He nodded.
I scratched the dog behind the ears and it jumped on top, licking me. I felt pinned by its weight and I tried to gently push him off, but it was like trying to move living, breathing concrete.
"Down, boy," another Chee called. "Down, Rocks."
Rocks obeyed, but he stayed by my side as the Chee approached. His human form was that of a tall, Hispanic man with wavy black hair. Possibly a college student.
"Sorry about that," he said with accented English. "Rocks was a guard dog for a junk yard. When the owner closed the yard we took him down here because of his tenancy to attack people."
"You trained him well," I said, genuinely impressed.
"Dogs aren't so different from humans," Bryce explained. "They react to their environment and to how they were raised. After a while, even a raised guard dog can become playful and harmless."
But he still has all that muscle, I thought.
The man was about to lead Rocks away.
"Wait," I said.
I got to my knees and acquired Rocks, gently scratching him with one hand as I did so.
"I envy you," the Chee said, before leaving. Bryce and Mr. Treet made sounds of agreement as I turned to face them.
"Thank you for letting me acquire him," I said. "There aren't a lot of zoos in this area and that morph might be useful."
"It's no problem," Bryce said. "We can help you with most pet animals, but the larger animals like the tigers and bears are going to be a problem."
"How come?"
"Too dangerous," Mr. Treet answered. "Even with our abilities, we're limited on what we can willingly do. A tiger or a lion, or a larger predatory animal might try to hurt you, or we would have to hurt them to protect you."
Great, I thought. But there was no point in complaining about it. I decided to take advantage of learning all of the information I could about the Chee.
"So, how did you wind up on Earth?" I asked. "What happened to the Pemalites?"
"The Pemalites were a peaceful race," Bryce went on. "Unlike humans, they only had one or two children, so the problems of overpopulation or lack of food never existed. They were able to focus on music, art, and science."
As Bryce spoke, the area around me became an open stretch of space. It felt like sitting at the ominax. I was surrounded by stars, but the firm ground beneath me reminded me that it was all an illusion.
Below me was a planet. It wasn't Earth. I'd seen more than enough pictures of Earth from space to recognize that much. It wasn't even blue actually. More like a light beige color where blue would be and a rainbow of colors in parts that I guessed were continents and islands.
"Did Pablo Picasso design this planet?" I asked.
A large red moon floated in the void above us. When I looked "down" I could see a second and third moon, blue and yellow respectively.
"We were on the edge of a distant galaxy," Bryce explained. "No enemies and no reason to make them. We were happy on our planet."
The image changed. We were on the surface of the planet, surrounded by a field of red and green…grass, I guess. Up in the sky I could see a paler version of the blue moon.
I heard something that sounded like laughter. We followed the sound to a gathering of creatures that basically resembled dogs walking upright.
"I'm just guessing those are the Pemalites," I said. "Either that or I walked into a live action Pound Puppies movie."
"Definitely the Pemalites," Bryce confirmed. There was a sadness in his voice, that didn't sound like it was rehearsed or recorded. Android or not, Bryce was feeling real pain at these memories.
The Pemalite children, who were tossing some kind of fruit back and forth at each other, like a baseball, passed through us like ghosts. But I could see the joy in their large beady eyes as they played. A group of Pemalites sat beneath an umbrella shaped tree, where some of the fruit had come from. They were eating and making remarks to the children…like the adults catching up while the kids played.
It was so alien and yet…so familiar.
One of the children fell and scraped its knee. It cried out in pain and starting sobbing.
I felt sad for it, but I didn't what to do. A part of me wanted to run to it and try to comfort it until it's parents came, but I realized it was just an illusion. Then a gray android emerged from behind the trees and approached the child.
Speaking to it in a language made up of gentle growls and yelps, the android comforted the child until a Pemalite adult (a parent maybe) arrived. Rather than brush it aside, the Pemalite held the android's hand and together they soothed the child and sang to it.
"Was that you?" I asked.
"No," Bryce said. "That Chee was destroyed in the initial attack."
"Attack?"
There was some kind of platform in the distance and floating just a few feet from the ground was a large, elliptical object about twice the size of a jumbo jet. The image shimmered and suddenly we were closer to it.
"This is the Kori. It means bridge in the Pemalite language. This ship was meant to carry new friends from their world to ours and back." Bryce was silent for a while. "Crazy, I know."
"Not it isn't," I said, sincerely. Maybe I didn't know much about the Pemalite culture, but I knew what it was like to want to find friends. To want to share the things you learned with someone else, to find someone who likes the things you like.
"The point is we never got to launch it. Not for the reason my masters wanted us to."
The sky exploded.
All over the planet, a shaft of energy as bright as Earth's sun tore a jagged line across the ground. Through the alien forest, I watched as the Chee from the earlier image was disintegrated in the blast. Children, men, women, killed instantly. And as suddenly as the attack began it was over, leaving wounds in the beautiful planet I saw from above.
"It wasn't enough," Bryce continued.
The ships flew overhead, black with red markings; they emitted a high pitched scream. It was clearly being numbed to protect my ears, but I could almost feel the pain in the faces of the survivors. On the ground and covering their ears, desperately trying to push the sound out.
Shocked, I fell to my knees. I desperately crawled to one of the children, trying to reach out to comfort it as it cried out for a parent that was probably killed. My hand passed through it…he, or her. I couldn't tell the gender, but I wasn't going to think of them like animals.
Silence. The imagery shimmered around me.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"Disease."
The word rang in my ears like a church bell. Pemalites, screaming out and writhing in agony. Their skin showing signs of disease at various stages. Small blemishes grew larger then bleed a vibrant purple liquid. Some of the diseased flesh had grown so weak that flesh and bones were visible.
I couldn't stop the tears. And to my surprise, neither could the Chee, who sat and held their masters as they died. The silence was worse than the screams.
When the silence came again, it never left. All that was left was the sound of the Kori taking off into the stars. Where I stood on that once beautiful field was a land covered in stones that I somehow recognized as grave markers.
"The Howlers destroyed millions of years of evolution and culture in just a few days." Bryce finished. "All we could save of our masters was the barest essence."
"I'm sorry."
Bryce sat down with me and placed a hand around my shoulders while I cried. Mr. Treet stood off to the side, watching me. He didn't need to see what was playing; he had all ready seen it.
"I'm sorry," I repeated. "I don't know what else to say."
"Don't apologize, please." Bryce said. "I'm glad to be able to share this with someone who cares. Your reaction is exactly why I didn't want the Yeerks to take you. Whether you choose to fight the Yeerks, or if you choose to run from your father, we will try to help you anyway we can. But you're a true Chee, Sean."
I truly didn't know whether or not to feel comforted by this. All I knew was that seeing the Pemalites destroyed in such an graphically violent way made me realize something. If the Chee couldn't stop the Howlers in an all out open war, what good would they be if the Yeerks discovered who they were? How good would their help be to me?