"Thank you, that's much better," I told the young policeman, sipping the warm mug of coffee he'd brought he as I settled into my chair again. We were in the manager's office of the local grocery store, less than two blocks away from Ground Zero, as people were calling it. A blanket was draped around "my" shoulders, as is somewhat traditional for disaster survivors.
Less traditional, perhaps, were the blanketed Hork-Bajir recovering in the produce section, or the two Taxxons who were helping take care of the meat department before the loss of power in that section of the building made the meat rot. Not that the Taxxons would have cared, I suppose.
"I know," the policeman said, watching me stare down at the half-lit facility through the manager's window. "We have no way of knowing how many of them aren't our people anymore."
I nodded Jeanne's head, gesturing out the window with my/her forward finger. "The ones with Yeerks will need to feed soon," I pointed out. A surge of guilt hit me as I felt Jeanne's annoyance radiating through our shared body. Controlling Jeanne's body was something I was getting far too used to, and I hadn't even bothered consulting her or asking her permission before speaking – essentially, I was behaving like a typical Yeerk. I blamed it on the weariness - three times already, I'd had to make a "quick bathroom trip" to demorph to human and remorph to Yeerk within the two-hour time limit. While not as physically draining as rapid-fire morphing, it was still emotionally exhausting, and making me feel a little irritable. But to be honest, part of it was just convenience. Why double-check every little thing when I know what I'm doing?
Of course, it could also have been the memories.
Jeanne's memories were everywhere, and try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to keep from accessing them as I used the connections I had to her brain. I tried to brush back her hair, and I was assaulted with the memory of Tom at the age of seven, cuddled in her lap and tugging at that hair as four year old Jake sat attentively in front of them, waiting for a bedtime story. I tried to stand up, and I saw Jake storming away from the breakfast table because Tom wouldn't stop trying to get him to join the Sharing.
"It's just not his thing," Jeanne had said to her oldest son, scooping the half-eaten pancakes off Jake's plate and running water over it. "He had to stop following in your footsteps someday."
"Mom," Tom had said, his voice laced with arrogance, "it'll be everybody's thing some day. You'll see."
"Mmmm," the policeman replied, snapping me out of Jeanne's thoughts. "We have the Kandrona, but we don't have a pool. There's no way we can use the original – too much debris and bad chemicals. And even if that weren't the case, they're still scouring it for survivors."
"Is that even possible?" I wondered, raising a curious brow in the policeman's direction.
He nodded, but his facial expression was grim. "We've only found a handful, so far. Most were boiled to death when the explosion heated up the pool, and a lot of the others were squished by falling debris." He shook his head. "Ten thousand Yeerks. So many of them just grubs…"
Perhaps it wasn't the wisest retort, but I just couldn't help myself – it came out despite my best efforts to stop it. "Human children have given their lives as well." I tried to make it at least sound more satisfactory and less retaliatory.
The policeman Yeerk, as it turns out, was barely half-listening, and not thinking much about his own words. "Aye. Too many lives all around."
«Perhaps he's a member of the resistance,» Jeanne wondered, echoing my thoughts as though she could read them.
I sighed. «Mmmm. Another potential ally, and neither of us can ever ask the other, because we're dead if we guess wrong.» I sipped my coffee, shaking my head. «Orkath would tell me to feel him out, of course. Tell me that my sexuality made me better prepared for the job than any other human could be, since gay teens go through the same thing all the time.» I put the coffee cup down, closing our eyes. «God, I miss him. I actually miss my Yeerk.»
«He sounds… nice,» Jeanne admitted, her emotions as open to me as a book. She was struggling between her disdain for Yeerks in general, what they had done to her sons, and what she knew of them through me and through her own Yeerk, whom she also missed, a little bit. «Is he the Yeerk your morph is from?»
I shook our head, and was about to reply when I felt a touch on Jeanne's shoulder. I opened my eyes to discover that the policeman had placed his hand there, and was looking at us in a longing sort of way. "The humans," he said nervously, a shaky grin on his face, "they seem to think touches like this can help when you're distressed."
I raised Jeanne's brow. "Is it helping?" I asked earnestly, somewhat involuntarily curling up Jeanne's lips in a wry smile of our own. The policeman didn't answer, instead leaning forward, intent on putting his lips on mine. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to stop him or allow him the comfort, given the extreme circumstances. Even my "host", a married woman, seemed unsure of what to do. What's the etiquette supposed to be after a wartime disaster?
Fortunately, the kiss never came, as we were distracted by the unmistakable sound of Hork-Bajir footsteps trying to navigate up a slim staircase designed for humans. The policeman pulled back and tugged down on his uniform shirt, clearing his throat. He seemed to want to be looking anywhere but at us when the Hork-Bajir entered the room.
"New orders gubik Assalsh uTal Visser," the Hork-Bajir declared, carrying a small Yeerkish communicator into the room with him. Using a power adapter, he plugged the device into a working outlet, and the three-dimensional hologram of Visser One appeared in the room, causing both the policeman and I to stand rigidly at attention. "Sub-Visser Eighty-Three afjis foi, Visser," the Hork-Bajir said, gesturing towards me.
«Status report,» Visser One demanded curtly, three of his four angry Andalite eyes landing square on me.
For a moment, I stared blankly at the figure. «What do I say?» I asked Jeanne, nearly panicking.
«What would Orkath have said?» Jeanne asked simply. How she could be so nauseatingly calm was a mystery to me. If it hadn't been just a hologram, I'd have pissed myself and run from the deck. I had no idea how Eric had managed to actually touch the Andalite-Controller, in a foolish bid to save humanity. So brave he had been… and it had cost him his life.
The grief that thought brought to me was nearly overwhelming, but it did help me find my voice. Orkath died trying for the freedom of the pool. Eric died fighting for the freedom of humanity. If they could be so noble, I wasn't about to play the coward. "Visser, I'm relieved to see that you survived the explosion. Our people have been sear-"
«Yes, yes, dispense the formalities,» the Visser ordered, cutting me off with a curt wave of his hand. «What does the situation on the ground look like?»
I recalled what I had seen when the Yeerk rescue team led me out of the wreckage. "Total dead is likely over three thousand peop, er, host bodies, and twice as many Yeerks from the pool. There's no longer any way to tell who is with us and who is against us. There are three rescue teams down here. Ours is the moderate one, we've converted the grocery store into a relief center for both Controllers and non-Controllers." I grinned. "No sense wasting good host bodies, after all."
The Visser nodded. «The other two?»
"The humans from the military installation who brought the bombs into the city are setting up a base camp on the northeast side of the wreckage. They've created a quarantine center where they intend to hold everyone they care for for three days, to ensure that we are not among them. On the northwest side of the wreckage, a Yeerkish contingent is pulling people out of the wreckage and eliminating any host bodies who cannot answer basic questions about Yeerkish history." I kept the report as neutral as possible, but I suppose it was impossible not to show my bias against both alternatives. I was grateful that this was the group that found me.
The Visser seemed to consider my information for a moment. «How many Bug Fighters would it take to accommodate both your group and the other Yeerk group?»
"Eighteen, perhaps," I guessed, glancing over at the policeman. "We don't really have accurate numbers on how many are in the other camp." I glanced back at the Visser. "We also have the Kandrona."
«Prepare it for transport aboard the Blade ship,» the Visser ordered. «And keep it under guard until then. Defend it to the last Yeerk, if necessary. I will order the other group to merge with yours; you will be in overall command.»
"Understood, Visser," I said with a nod. "May the light of the Kandrona shine upon you."
The Visser vanished without reply.
«Well,» Jeanne commented, «that was a perfect impersonation.»
«Thanks,» I replied. «Guess I never realized how much I was learning, watching Orkath all the time. But I really don't want to give him the Kandrona.» I sighed. «But I don't want to destroy it either. All those good Yeerks we would be killing…»
«It's a war,» Jeanne said simply. «I'm sure some of them would understand.»
«That's not good enough,» I insisted.
I turned towards the policeman. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Tom Cyglia," the policeman replied. "Or Piffin Three-One-Eight of the Hett Simplatt pool."
I pointed towards the door. "Order two delegates from our camp to proceed to the northwest sector and talk to our people. Don't tell them we have the Kandrona; just tell them we have orders from the Visser to combine our forces and hold this area until the Blade ship arrives." I started towards the stairs, gesturing to the Hork-Bajir to follow. "And you, come with me. We'll be going to the northeast sector, and explaining a thing or two to these humans about the treatment of prisoners."
No one questioned my orders as we left. And I thought to myself that maybe I wasn't the dullest knife in the drawer either.