We spent over half an hour arguing about whether we should try to get back into the construction site, and if so, whether it should be that night, and how much we should do. Eventually, we agreed to just do a recon mission. Everyone would acquire a bird morph, and we'd scout out the construction site from the air. Within five minutes, everyone had a bird morph. Tobias and Rachel had both been drawn to the red-tailed hawk, Marco and Cassie acquired an osprey, and Jake settled on a peregrine falcon. I was content with my raven morph and didn't bother to acquire a raptor of my own. True, everyone else had morphed something with more powerful eyesight - but I was smaller, unobtrusive, and could get very close to anything I wanted to see without looking too suspicious.

We stashed our clothes up in the hayloft, morphed, and one by one we ascended into the sky. The others took a few minutes to adjust to the assorted raptor instincts. I'd already been through all that last time, so I circled above while they sorted themselves out.

(Okay, is everyone ready?) Jake asked. One by one, we declared our readiness.

(We should spread out,) Marco said, (Birds like this don't exactly hang out in groups.)

(How far out should we go?) Rachel asked, (I mean, we still need to be able to hear each other, right?)

Marco dived away, and swooped to the far end of the pasture, calling back to us as he went.

(All right, can you hear me now? Good. And now? Good How ab- s? - cannot - ...)

Marco's voice cut out.

(So, looks like there's a practical range for thought-speech,) Rachel said, (Just about half a mile. So, if we keep a distance of about two to three hundred yards from each other, and everyone flies at a different altitude as much as possible, we shouldn't look too much like we're a group.)

It took a few minutes of trial and error, but eventually we got our spacing figured out. Tobias and Jake were highest up, with Cassie and Marco a little way out in front and off to the right. Rachel was below them and a little to the back, and I was closest to the ground (well, if you can call 200 feet in the air "close to the ground"). As a very loosely spaced and hopefully inconspicuous group, we wandered over towards the construction site.

I felt cold as we overflew the place. The last time I'd been there, I'd witnessed something absolutely incredible, talked to a real live genuine Space Alien, and been chased by some terrible monster that wanted to cut my head off. It hadn't even been 24 hours since we'd taken that shortcut - less than a full day since our lives had been so dramatically - and permanently - changed. Not even close to enough time had passed for any of us to properly adjust to it all. None of us said anything about last night, or at least nobody said anything to me. But I don't think any of us wanted to talk about it just yet, not right then and there.

There were a handful of police cruisers surrounding the area, guarding the closest street intersections. A few light utility trucks were there - I couldn't quite make out the writing on the side, but Tobias confirmed that they all had bright yellow hazmat markings. And there was a crew of about 30 workmen scattered about. Almost certainly some sort of Yeerk cleanup crew.

We'd kind of been expecting to spot Elfangor's crash site from the air and use that as a frame of reference for our search. But there was a problem.

(Hey, does anybody see a crashed Andalite spaceship anywhere?) Marco asked, (Because I don't.)

(I don't see it either,) Tobias answered. (We're in the right place, except no spaceship.)

(I'm thinking they either carried it away somehow,) Rachel said, (Or they just vaporized it on the spot.)

(All right, we'll just retrace our steps, then,) I said. (Jake? You know this area better than I do. Where did we get in?)

I flew up a bit higher, and Jake pointed out the route we'd taken from the mall. East parking lot to Casaloma Drive, then across Fremont Street, and up Midway Road to the gap in the fence we'd squeezed through. I swooped down, perched on the fence, and hopped down onto the dirt. The place looked much different in broad daylight, but as I hopped along the ground, I started to recognize where we'd walked through last night. A few times I flapped up to head-height to get my bearings, but I was able to retrace our course - and there it was, right across from me. The first building Elfangor's fighter had scraped against on its way down.

(Okay, you guys see the building in front of me?)

(I see it,) Jake said, (What about it?)

(Well, you can see where something hit it, right?)

(No... yes! I see it now! So that means there should be a big scar in the dirt just off to your right from where the ship hit the ground. But I can't see that, either.)

Up ahead, I could see a pair of workmen dumping something out of a wheelbarrow and smoothing it out over the ground. I hopped a bit closer and realized that there was a long stripe of dirt that was a different color than the rest of the ground.

(Looks like they filled in that gouge. They don't want to leave any evidence that an alien was ever here.)

As much as the crash had been cleaned up, I'd still seen enough to backtrack back to where Elfangor's ship had come to rest. There was the open space where the Blade Ship had landed, the dirt pile we'd hidden behind as we watched Elfangor's final moments... something on the ground glittered. There was the disc, half-buried in the dirt. Somehow, despite the flurry of activity, the Controllers had missed it!

(Guys! Guys! I see the disc!)

(And I found the Blue Box,) Tobias said, (It's over by that unfinished building straight ahead - the one that's just the steel frame.)

I saw the building Tobias had pointed out. When that laser blast had struck Elfangor, it must've sent the disc and the cube flying. Weird that they hadn't been obliterated as well, but certainly a lucky break for us.

(There's a lot of people around here,) Marco commented, (No way are we getting either of those things out of here without being noticed.)

(So, what do we do, then?) Cassie asked, (We can't just leave them laying around.)

(Well,) I said, (For now I'm going to move the disc so it's not just laying out in the open. You guys keep watch, make sure nobody sneaks up on me.)

I flew into one of the building shells, checked that nobody else was inside, and demorphed. And... there was that wave of nausea again. Not as bad as last time, though. It only took me a few seconds to recover and start moving. I peeked out through the door, saw the disc laying just a few yards away. The temptation was to just run out, grab it, and run for cover, but I knew running was a bad idea. Somebody might hear me and come to investigate. Besides, I didn't have any shoes on, and the ground was a mix of dirt, gravel, and bits of broken metal and concrete. No way was I going across that in bare feet at anything faster than a slow walk. Unless another one of those bladed dinosaur-aliens was chasing me again.

(None of the Controllers have line-of-sight to you,) Jake said, (Go now!)

It only took a minute to walk over to the disc, pick it up, and walk over to the tower of steel girders where the Blue Box lay. But it was a very long minute. I kept expecting to see somebody - or some thing - come out from behind a corner and see me. But I made it. With my bare hands, I scratched a hole in the side of a dirt pile and buried both the morphing cube and the disk. Then I morphed into the raven once again.

(What now?) I asked.

(I've got a plan,) Marco answered, (We're going to have to come back at sunset...)