Cassie's farm was right up against the edge of the forest - only a few hundred yards from the barn to the tree line.

"So, is anyone else coming tonight?" I asked as we climbed over the fence that marked the northern boundary of the farm.

"Tobias is out here somewhere," Cassie answered, "The others are working on something else."

"More Animorph business?"

"Yes. You know how Assistant-Principal Chapman is one of the highest-ranking Controllers we've been able to identify?"

Of course I remembered that. Once you find out that the guy who runs your school is actually a puppet for an alien parasite, it's not the sort of thing you forget in a hurry.

"Well, it turns out we've got a good way of spying on him. See, Rachel is friends with his daughter, Melissa. Melissa has a pet cat - and Rachel was able to acquire Fluffer McKitty's DNA when she went to visit the other day."

"Wait a minute. Rachel just strolled into the house of a known Controller, acquired the family pet, and is now morphing that cat to sneak right back into his house? And somebody thought Fluffer is a good name for a cat?"

I was impressed. Rachel was even more fearless than I'd thought.

"Well, maybe not right this second, but that's what Jake, Rachel, and Marco have planned for tonight."

(And while they're spying on Chapman, Cassie and I are going to get you acquainted with our new friend.)

Tobias was sitting on a branch nearby, almost invisible among the trees. If I hadn't heard his voice in my head, I wouldn't have thought to look for him.

"Buenos tardes," I said, "How you holding up?"

(Well, I've got a lot of spare time on my hands now. Not that I have hands. But I've been doing a lot of flying the last few days. Trying to keep tabs on some of the Controllers we know about. And it's nice not having to worry about how drunk Uncle Carl is going to be when I go home for the night. Or if today's the day some bully decides I'm overdue to be stuffed into a garbage can or something horrible like that. Hey, Cassie, did you-)

Cassie held up the McDonalds bag, reached in, and pulled out the hamburger patty.

(Thank you.)

Cassie held out her left hand. Tobias swooped down to land on it, and bit off a chunk of the hamburger as we started walking deeper into the woods.

(This is taking some getting used to,) Tobias commented, (I mean, I like being a hawk, but being one 24/7 without any kind of off-switch feels so... weird.)

"Like your shoes are on the wrong feet, or you're wearing your clothes backwards, and you want to just stop and take them off to put them back on the right way but you're just not allowed to do it? Yeah, I know what you-"

Cassie was giving me an awkward look, and I realized I'd said too much.

(Maybe you should just tell her,) Tobias said, so that only I could hear, (You know she wouldn't think any less of you if she knew.)

Maybe I could trust Cassie with my big secret. But I wasn't ready to share it with her. Not quite yet.

"Hey, Cassie? How much farther do we have to go?"

"We're already there," she said, pointing up.

Hork-Bajir are roughly humanoid, in the sense that they have two arms and two legs. They also have serpentine heads, tails, and feet that have more in common with a hawk's talons. Did I mention that they have some very nasty looking blades growing out all over the place? Wrists, elbows, knees, shoulders, foreheads, tail tips... they have blades everywhere. Marco once described them as "salad-shooters from Hell". It was easy to see what interest the Yeerks had in them. In the wrong hands, they were living weapons.

The Hork-Bajir that we had rescued was about halfway up one of the trees, but it climbed down in a hurry. I wasn't sure what was more surprising: that it was such a good climber, or that it appeared to be a child. It was smaller than the others we'd seen. Still taller than me, but not by much - not one of the seven-foot-tall monsters I'd battled in the Yeerk Pool. The blades didn't look as big, either, like they weren't quite fully developed. And its skin was a mottled greenish-purple that I hadn't seen before. Of course, none of us had really gotten a proper look at a Hork-Bajir before. The construction site and the Yeerk Pool hadn't been environments conducive to study and observation. Still, if I had to imagine a Hork-Bajir child, it would've looked like that. What I hadn't imagined was it being able to speak fluent English.

"Hello. My name is Toby," it said in a raspy, reptilian voice.

"Um... hi. I'm Lee."

"Lee. It is good to meet you."

"And you, too, I guess."

"'Guess'? Either it is good, or it is not."

"I'm sorry. I just haven't met many aliens, and I'm not really sure what to expect."

Toby remained silent for a moment.

"I suppose not. Jake has already told me everything about your meeting with Prince Elfangor. And about everything since then, up until the battle where I was freed. I am the only Hork-Bajir you have met whom you can safely have a conversation with."

"Yeah. Every other time I've seen one of your kind, they were trying to cut my head off. You're the only normal one I've met."

Toby shook their head. Seeing such a human gesture from such an alien body was unsettling, but I did my best to stay calm.

"Normal?" Toby said, "No. Ordinarily, my people have the intellectual capacity of a young Earth child. It's not that we are stupid. Hork-Bajir are as intelligent as we need to be in our native environment. But every few generations, one of us is born..."

Toby thought for a moment, carefully considering the correct adjective.

"I think the appropriate English equivalent is Seer. One who is blessed with great wisdom - with intellectual capacity on par with the Andalites. It is said that Seers are born in times of great struggle, when there is need of a guide to lead the Hork-Bajir through the danger. And it would appear that I am one of these Seers."

"And the Yeerks never noticed they had a super-intelligent Hork-Bajir for however many years?" I asked.

"Four years, three months, and eleven days."

"Wait, so you're just a little kid?"

"No. Our kind matures much faster than humans," Toby replied, "I have existed for less than half of your lifespan, but we are at roughly the same point of physical development for our respective species. In Human terms, I am a Hork-Bajir teenager."

Well, that was something new. A four-year-old teenager. Who would've ever thought that was a possibility?

"And no, the Yeerks did not notice anything unusual about me. Through some mechanism I do not yet understand, my intellect was suppressed. Muted. It was as though my mind was in a fog. Functionally, I was no different than any other Hork-Bajir... until the night you attacked the Sulp-Niar Pool and freed me. After Tobias led me to the surface, the fog began to clear from my mind. From some part of my mind the Yeerk could not reach, knowledge and understanding flowed forth like a breaking dam. It was frightening, at first. Intimidating. But also euphoric. Can you imagine what it's like to look up at the sky, and realize for the first time what the color blue is?"

I could definitely imagine something along those lines.

"Well, the first time I morphed a raven, there was a new color that I'd never seen before when I was human. I still can't think of a decent name for it."

"Yes, exactly," Toby nodded their head, "Now imagine that same experience, but for ALL the colors, and every sight and sound and touch and scent all at once."

"So, Toby... now that you're free, and have this super-human intelligence boost, what happens next?"

Toby smiled.

"What happens next is that you share your morphing power with me."


Author's Note: I spent a whole year plotting out "The Extraneous" before I submitted the first chapter. Early on, I wanted to revisit the events of "The Visitor", but my original plan was incompatible with some of the later story development. And honestly, I always thought "The Visitor" was kind of boring anyway. That story is still happening, but mostly off-screen.