Once Ax had left, breaking the mental link between them, Shara lay back down on the floor of the hayloft, staring up into the rafters for a long moment, before turning over on her left side so that she could try to get back to sleep. However, knowing that Darkon was close – without knowing how close the Warlord actually was to where she and Slade were sleeping – naturally made things harder than they would have otherwise been.

Eventually, however, Shara was able to settle herself down enough to fall asleep for another night.

xxxxXxxxx

The feel of Darkon's mind pressing down on his own woke Gunnar up earlier than he'd ever done before, and he shuddered involuntarily as the teknopod holding him burst open and spilled him onto the vine-covered floor of Darkon's underground base.

(Gunnar, you are to continue your efforts to locate Slade and his sister.)

(Yes, sir,) he responded, as the sensation of just waking up that would have dragged at him for some time longer if he were still human cleared up in an instant.

Gathering his clothes, Gunnar dressed and quickly departed from the Radam's underground outpost.

Emptying himself of thought and feeling, even as he emerged from the eerie, vine-lined, red-lit cavern that Darkon had carved for himself and his troops, Gunnar let down his own mental defenses as he began to draw farther away from the Radam's underground stronghold. He'd been given a more forceful reminder than usual as to just how tightly-bound he was to Darkon.

And so, he was searching out any signs of where Slade and Shara might have been; emptied of thoughts, of hopes, and of the idle musings that he would have otherwise entertained.

xxxxXxxxx

When she and the rest of the Animorphs had all gathered together in the barn, Shara found herself the center of attention for once.

"So, it looks like the Radam are starting to move now," Jake said, looking more than a bit shaken.

Shara could more than sympathize, considering just how dangerous the Radam ultimately were.

"Yeah, but what are we going to be able to do about that?" Marco asked, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes. "We only have Slade and Shara here with us, and we don't know how many of Darkon's forces even survived the transformation in the first place."

"Shara, do you have any idea how many forces Darkon might have?" Cassie asked kindly.

"There might be five of them, maybe more," she said, sighing softly as she forced herself to remember what had happened to her family and the close friends who had been with them on that camping trip where they'd had the misfortune to cross paths with Darkon.

Marco scoffed, then barked a humorless laugh. "You know, I'd say we shouldn't worry about five or six people, but then this would be five or six people like Slade."

"Or at least people like Shara," Jake said, sighing. "There's nothing we can really do about them. There's too few of us, for one, and we can't really increase our numbers safely."

"There's also Mr. Aldershot," Cassie said.

"Yeah," Marco said, smirking in a way that couldn't help but remind Shara of Cain. "First off, we should get him to change his name."

"You know, it's a pretty good plan that Visser Three has," Jake pointed out. "He acquires Mr. Aldershot, then he walks into work at the Secret Service offices, punches up anything he wants on the computer, sits in on secret conferences, and ends up knowing everything the Secret Service knows."

(What does the Secret Service know?) Ax asked.

"A lot," Marco said, becoming serious again.

"It's not just what he can find out, it's who he can talk to," Rachel said, speaking for the first time since all of them had gathered together. "Who he can get access to. He can find out if any information about Yeerk activity ever gets to-"

"Whoa!" Marco exclaimed, shooting to his feet.

"What is it, Marco?" she asked, folding her arms and tilting her head in his direction.

"Rachel's right: H.A. Third can talk to anyone, right? He can talk to his boss, right? So, what if he walked into their office and said 'Boss, guess what, the Earth is being invaded by two groups of evil aliens!' Well, okay, they'd throw him in the nuthouse. But, if he was to walk in there and say 'The Earth is being invaded by two separate groups of evil aliens, and guess what, I can turn into a rhinoceros' and then he actually did turn into a rhinoceros? Then the secret would be out!"

"It probably won't be the end of the invasion, but we might have a chance to find allies, at least," she said, then froze for a long moment, as the sense of someone familiar washed over her.

"Shara, what's wrong?" Jake called, gaze snapping over to her where she was sitting.

(He's coming, and he's close,) she said, linking with Slade's mind, advising him to lock down his own mind so that the Teknoman stalking them wouldn't be able to find either of them.

"Tobias," Jake called, and after a short acknowledgement, the Animorphs' old friend flew out of the barn.

Shara could only hope that he'd be all right.