Author's Note: I'm sure you've noticed, but my posting schedule is very erratic. Sometimes I post a chapter a week, sometimes several months go by while my regular life starts kicking and pushing at me… but there are always two things that bring me back: The love of the story, and the wonderful encouragements you guys write in your reviews. Thanks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was the following morning before Orkath finally told me what he and Exas had discussed in the Yeerk Pool.
«He wants me to join a rebellion,» he said, taking the time to check my cheek for tiny little peach fuzz hairs as he wiped the mirror clean of all the water vapor that had formed during our shower. There weren't any hairs yet, but a lot of kids my age were starting to get them, so I figured that it wouldn't be long, but apparently my Yeerk was concerned that the morphing technology was stunting my growth. Andalites usually don't get the morphing power until after their version of puberty, he had explained, and the Animorphs seemed so physically underdeveloped for their age on the few occasions that the Yeerks had actually seen them in their true, human bodies. His theory was that the time spent in morph was time in which the true body didn't age, and that in the event of a long, drawn out war, the Animorphs and morph-capable Yeerks would eventually be identified by their lack of secondary sex characteristics.
Of course, my progression towards adulthood was the furthest thing from my mind when he made his announcement. «You mean he's part of the Yeerk peace movement?» I asked giddily.
«No,» Orkath replied disdainfully, shaking my head on impulse. It was weird, since we were looking in the mirror at the time it was like "seeing" him, in my body, as he talked to me. «He says he feels that, now that we can take on any body we want, we no longer need the weak, frail human bodies just because they've got the greatest numbers. He wants to steal the morphing cube and go out "shopping" for the best bodies, see what other worlds have to offer.»
I frowned. Literally, I made my own mouth frown. Orkath was still in control of me, but more often than not, now, he was allowing a lot of my mental commands to make it past him and to my body, especially when we were in private. In a lot of ways, he was sharing control. «I don't get it… if he just waits awhile, Earth will probably be conquered and then he'll get to go on his shopping spree legitimately. Why steal it?»
«Two reasons,» Orkath said, raising my arm to check my armpits for signs of hair as well. «The one he didn't tell me is the more obvious one, there's no way that cube is going to stick around long. The Council of Thirteen is already itching to have a technical team dismantle the cube and see if they can replicate it.»
«What reason /did/ he tell you?» I wondered.
Orkath was quiet a moment. Then, he said, «He intercepted a Z-Space transmission from the Animorphs' camp the other day. The Andalite fleet is coming.»
I thought I should have felt relieved to hear that. Earth's liberators were on their way! But something about the way Orkath said it told me he was leaving a lot of the details out, and even if he wasn't, I just couldn't be happy with the thought of the battle they'd bring. Or the knowledge that the Yeerks would likely work double-time to secure the planet before the Andalites came.
«No,» Orkath muttered, hearing my thoughts. «We /won't/ be accelerating our efforts any more than Visser One already planned to. Because the Sub-Visser didn't inform Visser One about the Andalites yet.»
Now it was my turn to be quiet a moment, absorbing the shock of that. That, more than anything else, made it very clear that Tom's Yeerk was on the level. He intended to rebel. «Are you going to tell the Visser?» I asked Orkath curiously.
«I don't know,» Orkath admitted. «Exas made it clear what he'd have his supporters do to me if I /did/ tell, but… to not report something like that… it goes against everything I've ever known as a soldier.»
«So does being friends with me,» I pointed out, but I decided to drop the topic at that point. In the long run, it was a decision that Orkath had to make for himself, and although I had a preference, of course, I didn't want to influence him into something he'd regret later.
After he got finished checking me for hairs (I'm /not/ telling whether or not he found any) we dressed, brushed our hair, headed downstairs for breakfast (where my brother still jokingly called me 'Yeerk' every other sentence until Orkath pelted him with a piece of toast) and then trotted off to school.
Attendance was pretty bad, of course. Some of the Controller kids whose Yeerks we managed to save were now back, since they'd passed their "three day exam." Many other Yeerks died in the previous three day stint, though, and now their host bodies were beginning to spread the word about the reality of the invasion. On top of that, all of the ROTC and CAP cadets weren't in school because they were out on the city perimeter, blocking all entryways in and out of the city. The state's Lieutenant Governor, a human-Controller, helped dissuade any kind of outside reaction to the city's closing.
I was flipping through the border report in math class when the vice principal called the boys in my class out for physicals. As the rest of the boys headed into the nurse's office, he took me aside and brought me into his own.
"They're not ordinary physicals," Chapman explained. "We received another shipment of Yeerks from the Pool ship with orders to infest every male in the school and issue a Dracon beam weapon."
My Yeerk gave the impression of nodding approvingly, although I could tell he was bothered by the tactical change. Privately, he muttered to me, «Well, I guess this is where we'd have gotten Eric anyway.»
I was more scared than that. «What about my mother, my brother?»
Orkath asked, as conversationally as possible, "Do we have similar arrangements taking place in the high school and adult occupational facilities?"
The vice principal shrugged. "Not many, sir." Strange, to hear your vice principal call you 'sir'. "It's harder in most adult facilities, there's less organized structure. But we do have two factories who're giving their employees performance reviews as a cover. Those factories can be turned to the production of human weapons technology as early as tomorrow. We have nothing in the high school yet, the Visser wanted to wait for the next batch of Yeerks, he said our school was a better choice for now because we have an almost entirely Controller staff." He pointed at the report I was holding. "Rebel team made an incursion into the city today. Three of them, in bird-of-prey morphs. They almost disrupted one of our active train lines, but we drove them off."
Again, Orkath nodded. "Was anyone able to follow them back to their camp?"
Chapman shook his head, grimacing. "A team in falcon morph engaged them, but they were only made morph-capable this morning and they were near the end of their shift when they engaged the rebels. If they'd pursued, they'd have become nothlits."
Orkath looked back over my shoulder, at the wall that separated Chapman's office from the nurse's. Somewhere on the other side, the remaining members of the boys' baseball team were being reduced to live shells for their new Yeerk masters. The team was definitely not going to the playoffs. "I presume," he asked the vice principal, "you didn't call me away from watching the infestations just to tell me about some rebel scout team?"
"No, sir," Chapman agreed. "Two detectives crossed into the city looking for you today."
At first, Orkath didn't make the connection, but I reminded him. "Yes, they're supposed to take me to a medical facility to identify a missing friend of my host's."
Chapman nodded. "So their Yeerks said, after we took them. They wanted to know whether you still wanted to go, just to keep up appearances."
"Well," my Yeerk began, in a tone that made it clear he was about to say no.
«Oh, please,» I said to Orkath, «I haven't seen him in years! You know how important this is to me.»
«Yes, yes, I know,» Orkath conceded. Out loud, he said, "I suppose it /could/ be a good idea… it might calm down the media if they see requests to leave the city are being honored from time to time. Yes, I'll go."
"I'll inform them," Chapman said, picking up the phone. Since there was nothing further, Orkath stood and we left.
The rest of the school day was hard to endure. Newbie Yeerks are an awful lot like Andalites in a new morph, they get overwhelmed by all the new sensations that they've never experienced. The line for the cafeteria food at lunch was at an unusual high, to the point where a lunch lady volunteer, one of the few non-Controllers left, commented that every day should be Chili Con Carne day from that day forward. Of course, the chili caused a lot of flatulence, and all the new Yeerks enjoyed messing around with their ability to fart. The uninfested girls didn't see this as any significant difference from the boys' previous behavior.
When school ended, we headed out to the detectives' car and, right on schedule, they were waiting for us. Strangely, though, Martin was also there. "You should take me along," he suggested. "It'll look better if you have a supportive friend with you, and it's better for my cover with my family."
"You won't need a cover much longer," Orkath protested, but we waved him into the back seat of the car anyway. He made some small talk with the detectives, but Orkath's mind wandered more towards me.
«Y'know, I've been thinking,» Orkath said. «I can ask around a bit… see if I can find nicer Yeerks for your family.»
«I don't want /nicer/ Yeerks for my family,» I whined at Orkath. «I want them to stay uninfested.»
«You hate my kind that much?» Orkath asked. «I suppose you hate me,» he added, even though he knew, better than anyone could, that I didn't.
«No,» I insisted, «you're different. You're… we have an understanding now. But in a way, it's still a forced understanding, because I /have/ to have you in my head. I don't want my family to go through that, if they choose a Yeerk partner someday, fine, but they shouldn't be /forced/.»
«I know of no other way to help them,» Orkath admitted. «They wouldn't leave the city without you and there's no way they can stay there and not be taken.»
For some reason, the way Orkath worded that statement made an idea pop into my head. An idea I could feel Orkath getting excited about, as he perceived my thoughts. «Hey,» I asked jokingly, «are you thinking what I'm thinking?»
«It could work,» Orkath responded. «There /are/ so many new Yeerks now, no one would question the fake names… but you would have to be willing to acquire me, morph me, and infest one of them long enough to go down to the pool and put in a feeding appearance.» His thought-speak took on a firm edge. «And you would have to willingly let me back in as well.»
«Of course I'd let you back in,» I pointed out. «Without you, the plan doesn't work and all /three/ of us get reinfested, probably with crueler Yeerks.»
«But will your mother and brother understand that,» Orkath asked, «once all three of you are human and I'm nothing but a slug on the ground? After seeing what… what the pool is like?»
«I can make them understand,» I said confidently, thrilled at the opportunity to do something positive for them. To finally know that, in a small way, they were safe.
While we were talking, the car made it to the hospital and the four of us entered. Martin excused himself to go to the bathroom – apparently he had to go bad, because he took it at a run – while the rest of us proceeded to the fifth floor, where Craig was being kept.
«It will be… hard for me,» Orkath said gently. «Yeerks go through a puberty, similar to humans. Puberty for us means maturing to the point where we're ready to take a host body.»
«You're not hosted when you're kids?» I wondered.
«Some of us are,» Orkath declared, «but prepubescent Yeerks never stay hosted long because their need for Kandrona rays is higher than an adult's. They'd need the pool every day, not every three days. But during puberty, Kandrona rays become… irksome. It's almost like humans tend to lose their metabolism at the end of your puberty, so that you eat the same foods as before but suddenly gain a lot more weight. Continual doses of Kandrona start to make the Yeerk very sick.»
Suddenly I saw where this lesson in Yeerk biology was taking us. «Can you be in the pool and not take in the rays?» I asked, suddenly concerned.
«Yes,» Orkath said. «In fact, only during puberty are Yeerks unable to close the pores that absorb Kandrona. It's nature's way of making us leave the pool in adolescence… the only solace from Kandrona during that period is a host body. But my fellow Yeerks will be expecting me to feed, and I could blow my cover if I don't. It's how the rebel Aftran was caught. So I'll have to feed twice every three days.»
«Are you sure you're willing to do it?» I wondered.
«I will,» Orkath agreed, «if I have your word that you won't go against my wishes when dealing with other Yeerks, or tell any humans about my people without my consent. It will be harder to fight you for control, so I must rely on your word.»
"We're here to see Craig Tozier," the detective said to a nurse, snapping us out of our intense discussion.
"In the back room," she told the detective. "But you might want to bring nose plugs, he smells awful. Ordinarily I'm supposed to escort you, but /I'm/ not going near him."
"Is it a medical condition?" one detective-Yeerk wondered, but the other started down that hall and we headed after him, my eagerness to see Craig again getting to Orkath.
It was Craig, alright. Same dark black hair, same goofy looking nose. He'd grown a lot, way more than I had. He was even sporting a small moustache on his upper lip. He looked tired, but nowhere near as bad as they'd described.
"Chris?" he asked, staring at me. "You're Chris, right? I remember you!" He moved up to give me a hug, but then the pain in his side must have gotten to him because he leaned back down.
«No, not pain,» Orkath said, peering at my friend curiously as he approached and clasped hands with him. «His face isn't wincing.»
«You're right,» I conceded. «And that smell… isn't it…» That's when it hit me. «Skunk! He smells like /skunk/!»
Orkath's shock radiated so profoundly in my head that I'm sure it must have shown on our face. «But… that would mean…»
«Yeah,» I agreed. «He's the Animorph with the bear morph!»