The seven of them reached the open water in about half a minute.
"All right, let's morph," Jake said. "Everyone to dolphin, all except Ax who's going to be using his shark morph."
They all waded into the water until they were waist deep, the water tugging and pulling at them and forcing sand between their toes. Shara, for her part, thought the sand felt kind of nice.
"Let's do it," Rachel said, as Tobias swooped down to land on her right shoulder.
"Let's get fishical, fishical," Marco sang out.
"Now that was good," Shara said, laughing.
Rachel, on the other hand, wasn't quite so impressed. "Olivia Newton-John? Have you been listening to dinosaur-rock radio again?"
Shara cuffed her upside the head for that. "Do not insult the classics in my presence," she said, only slightly serious. "There's a reason they're classic, after all."
"Is there any chance that we could just do what we came here to do?" Jake demanded impatiently.
"Anyway, dolphins aren't fish," Cassie said authoritatively. "They're mammals."
(Oh, everyone just shut up so we can get this over with!) Tobias shouted.
"Very tense," Marco said, winking at Cassie. "A few too many high-caffeine mice."
Shara shook her head, and all of the Animorphs closed their eyes and focused on their respective dolphin morphs. Having only morphed a seagull, Shara wasn't quite prepared for the drastic structural changes she was being forced to undergo; the first thing she lost were her arms. They seemed to be sucked right back into her body, while her hands and fingers melted and melded together to form flippers.
Her face bulged out and out, forced forward by the growth of more bones than could be found in a human face. Her skin changed from human-standard to the springy, gray rubber of the dolphin, as her eyes migrated to the sides of her head and gave her a view of the changes that the rest of the Animorphs – her new friends and her brother – were going through as they morphed.
Slade's face – her brother's familiar face – had changed into the grinning face of a dolphin, and the change was slowly reshaping him from the neck down. Still, the fact that her brother still sported the shaggy mop of black hair that she had always considered his trademark was extremely funny to her. Morphed or not, amnesiac or not, he would always be her brother.
Falling on her stomach in the cold water – that wasn't really all that cold anymore, she noticed – Shara noticed a slight stinging in her eyes before she was suddenly able to see much more clearly. It was almost like seeing through air again. There was a momentary jolt of fear when her trachea closed up, but soon just fine.
She was breathing through a hole in her back, but she was breathing fine nonetheless.
When she started to feel her legs fusing together from the waist down, she knew that the morph was almost complete. Looking around at the others, she found herself surrounded by six other dolphins, and a single shark. And, for some reason that she wasn't equipped to understand at the moment, she really hated the shark among them. There was no real reason for the bone-deep hatred she was feeling, and even less so since she hadn't known Ax long enough to form any kind of impression of him.
But then, it wasn't really her who had a problem with the shark. It was the mind of the dolphin she was currently sharing a body with. That would bear thinking about later, but for now she had other things to think about.
(Let's just swim a circle around this island and see what we see,) Jake suggested, as they all kicked their tails and swam out of the shallows,
(I'm guessing that what we'll see is a whole lot of fish,) Marco said dubiously. (The more I think about this, the more I think that Erek must have made a mistake. I mean, this island is awfully peaceful.)
(All the more reason for these Yeerks to be hiding something out here: no one would think to look for it,) Shara pointed out. (Besides, Cassie told me that Erek's an android. I don't think he'd make mistakes like that.)
(Someone could have given him the wrong information,) Marco said.
(They could have,) Shara allowed. (But why would they think to? From what Cassie told me, they all think he's on their side.)
(Who cares about the specifics?!) Cassie called back giddily. (Let's just swim around and see what's here!)
With that, Cassie took off at full speed, laughing like the carefree dolphin she was for the moment. None of the others could quite resist following the instincts of their dolphin morphs to give chase, and not even Slade tried to resist. Following in Cassie's wake as she powered through the water, the eight of them dove and surfaced like a team of well-trained divers.
Leaping and diving as they made their way through the water, the seven dolphins laughed and chattered to one another. Marco fired a blast of echolocation, and the picture he was returned disturbed the perfect happiness of the dolphin whose body he shared. Forcibly pushing thoughts of Ax in shark morph – and sharks in general – out of his mind, Marco pulled the dolphin's happiness around himself like a shield.
He wanted more than anything to be happy; what he was going to be facing in that facility brought up a lot of painful memories for him.
(Okay, let's try to focus a little here,) Jake said, drawing the attention of the group. (Keep the shoreline on your left, and let's take a quick run around the island.)
(You mean like a race?) Tobias asked eagerly. (Because that would be really cool!)
(Well, I guess you've more or less gotten over your fear of water by now, right Tobias?)
(It's hard to be afraid of anything right now,) the morphed hawk said. (This was worth it. This is so cool! It's like flying, but with a really thick wind. Come on! Race you guys around the island!)
The seven of them took off, blasting around the little island at as fast a pace as they could manage. Ax, for his part, stayed a few body-lengths behind. More to keep the shark's killing instinct in check than out of any real desire not to be near the rest of the Animorphs.
They stayed close together for the most part, diving and racing for the surface when they needed to breathe, but one of them was always trying to get out ahead of the rest of the group. Just for the thrill of being first in their impromptu race, but when one of them sped up, the rest of them would do so not long after. It wasn't a race any of them could really win, but being dolphins they enjoyed it all the same.
It was Marco who spotted it first, almost by chance he had fired a burst of echolocation at the exact moment that they had come into range of the base. The picture he received startled him, and all the more so because it didn't match up at all with what his eyes were showing him.
(What is that?) he demanded of no one in particular.
(What's what?) Jake asked.
(Shoot some clicks,) he suggested.
Every one of the dolphins did so, filling that section of the water with the rapid-fire clicks that would allow them to locate things that had been hidden from their sight. Whether by darkness, opacity of the water, or in this case a holographic projection.
(That's weird,) Shara said, taking in the divergent images she was getting from her eyes and her echolocation.
(What is it?) Ax asked. (Are you sensing something?)
(What is that?) Cassie asked, surprised.
(I don't know,) Tobias said. (But I do know that it's not natural.)
(Let's go check it out, then,) Marco said. (There are some definite limits to this echolocation thing.)
Taking more complete control of their dolphin bodies, the seven Animorphs dove deeper, aiming for the anomaly that their echolocation had shown them. They had sensed a large, angular structure just half a mile off the coast of Royan island. Deep enough under the water that the wake from the boats would be a non-issue, and any scuba divers would be dealt with long before they could come close enough to see anything important.