Encyclopedia of Concepts and Imagery in Andalite Thought-Speech
Entry: Communication
«Fingers dance meaning»
«Love joins minds over distance»
Aftran Plisam Pool
#Governance
This is the official message well for governance of the Aftran Plisam Pool. In addition to in-person discussions, we will conduct official governance business in this message well as a record for posterity of how we reached communal decisions. Please read the Rules before joining the discussion. This is an adult message well.
The Sage in the Weeds
Pool, we need to talk about Essa. I just got off a shift of guard duty with them, and they tried to talk to the newcomers. I wasn't sure if they were allowed so I stopped them. Did I do the right thing?
Fighting Every Rane
Can we focus on the topic at hand first? We need to talk about the outcome of this vote.
Generation Freedom
What is there to talk about? They voted to let an Andalite engineer a biological weapon against us and we're all totally shriveled.
Filshig Traitor
Aftran is still out there working for the Guardians of the Galaxy. She won't let them use a weapon that will kill us all. I want that virus. I don't want to enslave anyone and I don't want our children to enslave anyone. I want to help.
Generation Freedom
Ha! As if they want your help! They don't care about us.
Eslin 825
I am inclined to think they mean well, but it's also true that this virus could go desperately wrong. We need plans for if, or when, that happens.
Green Sky
We've been working on writing the law. I'd like to propose a new one: no virus in this pool. We have to be a safe zone.
Filshig Traitor
And what if we want the virus? There's nowhere else for us to go.
Deinfestation
Take it up with your genocidal friends.
Fighting Every Rane
Can we at least be allowed to leave the Pool and help if we don't expose ourselves to the virus?
Green Sky
Maybe. If we can find a way to test for it.
Eslin 825
All right. Who wants to join me in drafting the new policies?
The Sage in the Weeds
Seriously though, what is the deal with Essa and the newcomers? Are they a bad influence on these people who just came from Grash Akdap?
Green Sky
It's not against our current policies. Let Essa talk to them, listen, and we'll learn.
Eslin 825
I think it could be good for Essa. Let them learn why they were so desperate to leave.
The Mokad Plisam Pool
Direct Message - Derane1
Illim
Hello, Derane1. GreenSky sends hir regards.
Derane1
Tell hir that Sssrisssya misses hir. Hir new Yeerk is fine but it's not the same.
Illim
I will.
Illim
I have a more official message I've been asked to pass on from the Aftran Plisam Pool.
Illim
They're not directly aware of what your cell of the YPM is doing. Information security and all. But they know the Taxxon resistance has its ways – you were highly successful with the escape of the human hosts. They wanted to know if you would help evacuate more Yeerks to the Pool, through your own means.
Derane1
How are we supposed to bring Yeerks to the surface? We can't be seen up there.
Illim
You have your own spaces you've tunneled out. We don't know where they are, nor should we, but everyone's guessed. Could you arrange a drop at one of those places?
Derane1
I'm sorry. We can't compromise our security that way. Our mission is too vital.
Derane1
We Taxxons – we Yeerks who are partners to Taxxons – we are part of the Peace Movement in name and deed, but we have our own priorities. We're tired of the Movement's pacifism. We want to take action. To do that, we need secure places to gather.
Derane1
I know the sort of Yeerk who went to the Aftran Plisam Pool wouldn't approve.
Illim
They wouldn't. They're an idealistic bunch. I admire them for it. But they're mostly poolies who don't know how it is on the ground.
Derane1
They're foolish dreamers who think we can change the hearts and minds of the cruelest Vissers with the right pamphlets. But you, Illim. You've worked with the Animorphs. You've taken action. I think you understand.
Illim
I do. And I support you. If you need anything of me, ask.
Derane1
We will want to communicate with the Animorphs. Not yet, but soon. Can you arrange it?
Illim
They will find the existence of rebel Taxxons hard to believe, I think. They see ravening monsters and not much else. But I'll try.
Derane1
We will pass you a message that will catch their attention. Our leader is very convincing.
Cassie
Jake and Marco came with me for the call to Eva and Aftran, even though they'd just come back from a patrol around the forest watching out for Gold Bands. Marco came because he wanted to hear his mom's voice, Jake because… well, he's Jake. There was no way he would leave the two of us to make this call without him.
I was really grateful to have them there, because Bachu might be a millennia-old android made by aliens, but I could tell that she was giving me the mother of all betrayed looks, the kind your parents give you when you've shattered their fondest dreams about you. Believe me, I know what those look like.
The four of us were in a natural cave in the rocky wall of the valley, close enough to the waterfall at the northern end that we could hear the roaring crash. I huddled in my sweater among the cold, damp rocks and felt the body heat from Jake standing behind me and Marco at my side. Bachu gave off heat too, like a computer working overtime.
"I'm sorry," I told her.
She didn't respond. I couldn't blame her. In a way, she reminded me of myself, before this war started. That Cassie would have said she was a pacifist and that biological weapons were never justified. Except that I'd rewritten my own programming over time, and Bachu could only push hers so far.
"Patching you through," Bachu said.
I held Quincy to my throat, where he could press his squashed little face against the delicate skin. I felt his wrinkled nose, the hollows of his ears.
"This is a live call," Bachu said. "Marco, Jake, and Cassie can hear you now."
Eva's voice came out of Bachu's speakers, a little tinny, with bursts of static, not so bad that we couldn't hear. Even knowing it was her son on the other end of the call, she was sharp and alert, all business. "What's going on?"
"We've got big news," Marco said, just as cool and professional as his mom. How were they both like this? I could never do it. "We caught an Andalite ship. They were on a suicide mission to drop a quantum virus into the Yeerk Pool. Like they did to the Hork-Bajir."
"You stopped them?"
"Yes, Miss Eva," Jake said, like he was nine again and telling her he and Marco had done their homework. "I'll let Cassie tell the rest."
"Aftran?" I said. My voice felt tinny coming out of my own mouth, never mind how it would sound after being broadcast thousands of miles into space. "You remember the treatment the Circle of Friends made for the Yoort?"
Eva's voice came out softer. I'd never thought of Aftran as a soft person, but compared to Eva, she was. "How could I forget?" I waited a moment. "Oh. Kandrona shine and strengthen me. It was a quantum virus, wasn't it?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marco flinch at the sound of his mother saying the traditional Yeerk phrase. I said, "We have the Andalite scientist who engineered the virus. She says she can recreate the one the Iskoort made. So we can weaponize it." I swallowed. "I'm sorry, Aftran. I'm so sorry."
A staticky silence fell. Then Aftran said, "Bachu?"
"Are you going to help them do this?" Bachu said.
Aftran voice went flat and angry, which was terrifying coming from Eva. "Who are you to judge us for this, Bachu? I'm in Eva's head. I see a hundred scenarios for this war in her brain every week." She seemed to lean closer to the microphone. "This is the least violent solution I've seen yet, and you're going to walk away because – what? It vaguely resembles how the Howlers killed your creators? What do you think we would do to win instead of this, huh? Send nicely-worded postcards to the Council of Thirteen?"
"We are creating alternatives," Bachu said, almost desperately. "Robot bodies for Yeerks."
"Great! Glad to hear it! We'll give them to Yeerks who've been hit with the virus who play nice and cooperate. Nice robot bodies they don't have to enslave. Or were you thinking you'd just send them to Visser Five as presents?"
"I thought I'd send them to you," Bachu said, quiet and defeated.
"And what? I'd give them to the Yeerks on the Pool Ship and tell them they don't have to be mean to lesser species anymore? And they'd listen to me, just like that? You've lived on Earth for thousands of years, Bachu! You know that's not how you get conquerors to stop enslaving people!"
"Not this, Aftran," Bachu begged. "Not a virus turning people's bodies against them. Please. Not this."
Aftran thumped Eva's hand against something hard. "Fuck you, Bachu. You were my partner – I thought I could – no. Not anymore. Never again. I'm glad this is your last call. Fuck you. Cassie? Write this down. These are the specs for our communication relay on board the Pool Ship. Get Ax or somebody to figure it out."
I looked at Bachu, waiting to see if she would cut off the call. She didn't. "I don't have anything to write with," I said. "Will you do it after the call, Bachu?"
"Fine," she said. "But then I'm walking away. You won't see me again. If you come to visit the Aftran Plisam Pool, someone else will answer the door."
"Okay," Aftran said. "I don't have to rattle off a bunch of numbers, then. We only have a few more minutes. Cassie, you have nothing to apologize for, and Eva and I are going to everything we can to help. I can't wait to sic that virus on these pompous slaver assholes on the Pool Ship. Now Eva has a message for you."
Her voice changed, less flashy anger, more grim sobriety. "Some of my Sharing initiatives have gotten out of hand. Too successful. It's expanding throughout California. They're building a new Pool in NoCal. You need to develop that virus soon, because open war or no, this is escalating. Big time. The news about what Hork-Bajir-Controllers can do is spreading to other parts of the Yeerk fleet. If the Andalites haven't noticed, they will soon. And they might decide that maybe they need to finish the job on the Hork-Bajir they already – shit. I need to wrap this up. I love you, Marco." Marco blinked furiously, his face turning red, like his mom's slip of the mask had broken his, and he was trying to keep it in place by force of will. "Find a way of getting back in touch. Quick. Goodbye."
The cave went quiet except for the white noise of the waterfall. Bachu said, "I'm going to find Ax and tell him everything I know about the communications relay. He'll have to encrypt the connection himself, though." She tilted forward in a little bow. "Goodbye, Cassie."
"Thank you for everything," I began.
Tell her something, Quincy said. Find the words that will make her stay. We did it with Estrid, we can do it with her.
No, I thought. For once, I'm going to be kind.
"Most of all," I went on, "thank you for Aftran's life."
"I wish I could say the same," Bachu said coldly. "Aftran's life won't count for much when you release that virus onboard the Pool ship and the free hosts go hunting for Visser One's blood."
Dia hissed and bared her fangs. Marco said, "If you care so much about your precious Yeerk buddy, then why don't you do something useful like go up to the Pool ship and offer her your holograms instead of sitting down here with your metal thumb up your robot ass?"
"If you care so much about your mother, why are you asking her to release a biological weapon on board a spaceship she and Aftran have no escape route from?"
Marco looked ready to take Bachu apart with his bare hands, Dia rising up from her coils around his shoulder like an Andalite tail blade ready to strike. Quincy's fangs were out, too. "She and Aftran made their choice," I said, before Marco could do anything hasty. "I thought you agreed to be Aftran's Isk because you respected her choices."
"No, that wasn't it," Quincy said. "Don't you remember? The day she put Aftran in her head, she said she did it because she'd already seen everything on Earth and she wanted something new."
"I did see something new," Bachu said. "And now you're going to extinguish it."
"Thank you, Bachu," Jake said, in the tone of an officer saying, You are dismissed, soldier.
Dia rattled her tail. "Yeah, fuck off, Bachu."
Bachu left the cave. Dia slowly folded back her fangs and lowered her head to the crook of Marco's arm. I wrapped my sweater tighter around myself and shivered and tried not to cry.
"So," Marco said. "I still have some limoncello left. Who wants to get drunk?"
Marco, Jake, and I found a spot by the lake in the southern half of the valley, where only Hork-Bajir and Animorphs were allowed to go. Jake spread out a blanket on the grass. We all sat facing the lake, with me in the middle by some unspoken agreement. Diamanta lay in front of us, one coil around Merlyse, one around Quincy ("You're so small," she told them smugly, which made Jake growl at Marco, "I'll show you small," and play keep-away with the limoncello bottle.) We watched the sun set over the water and passed the liquor around.
This time, when he gave me the bottle, Marco didn't make any comments about me being too good for underage drinking. I was glad. We all believed at some point that we're better than them somehow, Quincy thought, but I think – finally – none of us believe that anymore. I took a long swig and watched the way the fading golden light changed them. Merlyse and Diamanta looked too tough and gray for the lush green landscape of southern California, dotted with wildflowers. Quincy looked like he was coming into his element as the sky got darker. Marco looked kind of glamorous in the sunset, his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. Jake was beautiful, his jawbone sharp and golden, his eyes deep and warm.
I passed him the bottle. Our fingers brushed. Jake looked over my head at Marco, raised the bottle in a salute, and said, "Thanks, man. For backing up Cassie's play on the Ralek River yesterday. It must have been…" He took a drink instead of finding a way to finish the sentence.
"Dude," Marco said. "There was never any question. Cassie and I have argued with each other, like, half a million times, but on this thing? We were finally on the same wavelength." He accepted the bottle from Jake and saluted me with it before drinking.
I smiled at him and took the bottle. "Oh, come on. That's not the first time we've been on the same wavelength."
Marco raised his eyebrows. I looked at Jake, then back at him, and took a long draft, filling my mouth with sour-sweet burn. Marco blushed. Then he said in a rush, "Do you ever think about the history books they'll write? If there's anyone around to write history books after all this?"
I passed Jake the bottle. He said, "Who's writing them?" and drank.
Marco snatched the limoncello. "Humans. God knows what Andalite history books are like." He sipped and rolled the limoncello around his mouth before swallowing. "They won't have all these big debates we're having about what's right or wrong. They'll just say, 'These teenage heroes figured out how to outsmart an alien empire…'"
I grabbed the bottle and drank fast enough to scald my eyes and throat. "They'll say a girl stole a deadly biological weapon from the Andalites and figured out how to use it for her own ends. They'll say she loved the enemy so much she couldn't bear to kill them, so instead she mutated them into something else. Something everyone else wouldn't kill on sight." I swigged from the bottle again. "Cassie the Slug Lover. Kills Yeerks and cries over them."
Jake took the limoncello from me, screwed the cap on, and laid it down in the grass. He put an arm around me. "Cassie. Stop repeating things the Drode said in the Pemalite ship."
I sniffed back tears. "Why not? The Drode was right."
Diamanta's coil around Quincy tightened. Marco poked me in the shoulder, above Jake's hand gripping me. "Jake wiped out all the Howlers with his little memory trick. Are you mad at him about that?"
"No," I said quietly. "Just… sad. That it had be that way."
"You're not even killing all the Yeerks," Marco said. "Be sad if you have to. It's not what I'd do, but you know, do your thing. But if you're not mad at Jake, it's completely stupid for any of us to be mad at you."
"All of this is completely stupid," I said. "Estrid could cook up some kind of nightmare in her lab – I talked with her in that room, she has no morals. She could decide she's totally fed up with us and morph and fly away. Even if she actually makes this thing, the Kryptonite, how are we supposed to get it in the Yeerk Pool? In the ships in orbit? What will the Yeerks do when they realize they're losing control over their hosts? What will the Andalites – "
Jake held a finger up to my lips. "Not now, Cassie. We'll worry about that later."
I pulled away a little. "What now, then? What are we even doing right now?"
"We've realized we're all completely morally fucked, and we're drinking to forget," Marco said.
"We're trying to feel a little less miserable," Jake said. "Just for one night. Okay? I'm just – I'm tired, Cassie." The light was dying, mostly just reflections on the water, and I could see the dark pits beneath his eyes.
I laughed and wiped my tears with a corner of the blanket. "Fine. Cuddle up. Hold me and tell me I'm… I don't know. Not a monster. A tree hugger. A girl you like."
Jake moved to one end of the blanket, stretched his legs out in front of him, and held out his arms. "Okay. Come here."
I moved to come sit between his spread legs.
Diamanta's coils loosened. She separated from Quincy and Merlyse. Marco reached for her with one hand and the limoncello bottle with the other. "You guys have a nice date, okay? Thanks for sharing the limoncello. I've always wanted to see you two drunk. Now I have! My life has been enriched. You see something new every day, and sometimes it isn't even traumatizing." He wouldn't make eye contact with us, and Dia hung from his hand as limp as a rope.
"Wait," Jake said. "There's room on the blanket for the three of us."
Marco stood there with Diamanta in one arm and the limoncello in the other. Merlyse and Quincy sat abandoned in the grass at his feet like toys. He raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"I'm a big guy," Jake said. "I can hug two people at once. We did it in Cassie's barn that time, remember?"
"You can't just invite me on your date with your girlfriend. I know you don't have a lot of dating experience, pal, but that's not how it works."
"Cassie's not my girlfriend," Jake said. "I don't know what we are. And – " Merlyse hopped nervously back and forth in the grass. "Mertil says that's how it works with Andalites. They don't think you have to go out with just one person."
"It's not how it works with Hork-Bajir either," I said. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on here, but I knew whose side I was on. I didn't want Marco to leave. "Remember Ghat and Meret's wedding?"
"What about their wedding? Jake," Marco said, his voice rising. Diamanta wound in a circuit around his body, over his shoulders, across his back, around his hips. "Are you seriously inviting me on a date with you and Cassie right now because an Andalite told you it was okay?"
"It's not a date," Jake insisted. "You and Cassie went through a bunch of fucked up bullshit on that spaceship and I'm trying to help. Take it or leave it."
I sat on Jake's thigh and patted his other leg. Marco sighed and put Dia back down in the grass, where she wound her tail between Merlyse's legs and curled a circle around Quincy. "For the record, this is insane," Marco said. "We're not Andalites or Hork-Bajir, in case you haven't noticed." But he sat down in Jake's lap with me, our sides pressed together against his broad chest, our legs overlapping on his. Marco felt delicate and bony as a bird. I held his hand, and reached for Jake's big one. Jake held my hand and rested his chin on Marco's shoulder.
Marco squirmed a little. "Is this okay?"
"Is what okay?" I said.
"I'm not trying to steal Jake or anything," Marco said in a rush. His cheeks flushed.
"I'm the one stealing him," I said, in a rush of laughter. It just sounded so ridiculous coming from Marco, with Jake's face tucked right next to his neck. "You were here first."
"That's different!"
"Is it?"
Marco huffed and hooked his thumb at Jake's head. "Do you want to scare him off right now? What are you even doing?"
"You're the only one who looks scared to me right now," I said. "Though it seems like Dia knows where she wants to be."
Jake leaned back on the blanket, so Marco and I were in a cuddle pile on top of him. It was nice and warm, all tangled together in the cooling air. "It's fine, Marco," he said, his chest rumbling underneath us. "I have no preference."
"What does that mean?" I said.
"Something I learned from Mertil," Jake said. "He says you don't have to have a preference. Between, um. Boys and girls."
Don't laugh, Quincy warned me. He's being very brave right now. He'll freak out if you laugh. I struggled to keep the smile out of my voice. "You mean like… bisexual?"
"Is that what humans call it?" Jake said.
This time I couldn't hold back. I burst out laughing. Marco did too. "You sound like Ax!" he gasped. "Have we spent so long hanging out with aliens we don't know how to sound like normal people anymore?"
"Mertil's the only person who's ever talked about this stuff with me!" Jake protested.
"Alien sex ed!" I said. "You're probably better off, honestly. I hear Chapman gives the sex ed classes in high school."
"Oh my God," Marco wheezed. "What was Mertil's sex ed like, Jake? What are the Andalite birds and bees? Cassie can tell you what he got right – "
"Shut up," Jake said, messing up Marco's hair with his knuckles.
Marco wriggled out of the way, Dia giving Merlyse a whack with her tail in revenge, and tilted his head back to look up at Jake. "Did you really ask Mertil?" Marco pushed. "Whether you can like boys and girls?"
"He has a husband or whatever," Jake mumbled. "He seemed like the person to ask."
"Stop giving him a hard time, Marco," I said, poking him in the shoulder. "You asked me the same thing like six months ago. You said Ax was asking about it and you thought I might know the answer. It was a very convincing excuse." Quincy gave Dia a meaningful look from on top of her coils.
"Wait a second," Jake said. "Why did you ask Cassie about that?"
Marco made a disgusted noise against Jake's collarbone. "Because I've always wanted to do this, you asshole." And he dragged himself up along Jake's torso, grabbed his shirt at the shoulders, and kissed him.
I folded myself in the warm hollow between Jake's arm and his side and watched at a sideways angle. Marco squirmed around on top of Jake and mashed his face hard against his, like he had too much crawling under his skin and the only way to get it out was to kiss it all into Jake. Jake lifted the arm that wasn't tucked around me and wrapped it around Marco, holding him down and still. He kissed back slowly, eyes closed, like he was trying to hold onto every moment before it slipped away. His steadiness seemed to spread into Marco, relaxing him into an embrace instead of an attack. He pulled back and took a deep breath, his hair spilling long and black onto Jake's cheek.
I hummed into Jake's shirt. "That looked nice."
Marco jolted in surprise. Jake held him in place. "You okay, Cassie?" he said.
"That was… not something I ever expected to do. But it might be the least surprising and weird new thing that's happened lately? I don't know. It was nice." I raised myself up on one elbow. "Can I do it too?"
Jake smiled and nodded. Marco rested his head on Jake's upper arm and said, "Okay. This is totally weird, but you know what? Just go ahead. I'm here for it."
I huffed and ruffled Marco's hair so it came down over his face. "You don't get to complain. You got to have your first kiss before me." I straddled Jake's torso, caressed his jaw with my hand, and kissed him. He hummed, low and happy, into my mouth, and something inside my chest unknotted. I didn't feel like a monster or a freak in that moment. I was just a girl who got to kiss a cute boy and make him happy.
Except that I could feel Marco pressed against my knee, and his breath near my shoulder. Except when I went into four-eye and Quincy was in the shelter of Merlyse's wing, wrapped tight in one of Dia's coils. Except that we were outside in the open air and we didn't care who saw us do this thing that normal teenagers didn't do.
"I'm okay with this," Quincy murmured, soft but so all of us could hear. "We aren't normal. Why do we have to do this normally?"
I collapsed with a sigh against Jake's chest and threw an arm over Marco. I turned to look at him. "What it is about the three of us? This isn't new or anything. We just seem to… I don't know. Get each other."
"When we were with Mom in Bachu's basement," Dia said, twisting her head around to look right at Merl and Quincy. "And we were trying to figure out how to get Mom out of going back to the Pool Ship with Visser One. There was this moment when it was like I was in a forest full of all these branching paths, and it was impossible to find a way out… and then I could just see the shape of it all. Like how cities have a shape, you know? I could see that one clear path that would get me out of there. And that's when I knew the answer. You both get that, right?"
"Yeah," I said. "I think we do." And then, just because, I leaned over and kissed Marco too. He smiled against my mouth and slipped me tongue. I laughed in surprise and nipped at his tongue, just a little. He made a high pitched mmmph sound, but didn't pull away. I gave him one last firm smack, then really laughed. "You're what my mom calls a rascal, Marco. Your second kiss and you're already doing it with tongue. You've got to show us some respect!"
"Hey," Jake said. "Why didn't I get any tongue?"
"Sounds like Jake doesn't need respect," Marco said smugly, and kissed him again.
Quincy nipped at Dia with his fangs, and Merlyse tried to stop him with a pull to his tail, and the three of them devolved into a writhing tangled fight in the grass. I held onto Jake's arm and laughed. And waited for my turn, which I was sure would come next, one way or another.