(Rachel! Are you all right?)

(It's just a scratch, Cass. I'll be fine. Jake?)

(I think I'm OK. Marco? How are you?)

(Ow... that shark took a chunk out of my back.)

(Oh, that looks bad... Just hold tight, buddy. We'll help you get back to the surface. Lee, help me out here.)

(Yeah... wait a second. Where's Toby?)

(Toby? Toby!)

(Over there!)

(Oh my god, look at her fin!)

(What fin? It's gone!)

(Toby, wake up!) I was vaguely aware of Cassie's voice inside my head. (The sharks are gone. You're safe now. Sort of.)

I took no more notice of the voices than I did of the rhythm of the waves above me, or the blood pounding in my veins.

(TOBY!)

I felt something bite down on the shredded stump of my left fin, and every damaged nerve ending flared to life again, jolting me back into a state of awareness.

(AH!)

(I'm sorry. But we're trying to save your life.)

(...it hurts so much...) I whimpered.

(A shark bit one of your fins off,) Jake warned me, (You need to demorph before you bleed to death.)

(Why? So I can drown instead?)

(No, listen,) Lee said, (If you demorph and remorph, you'll go right back into a healthy dolphin body. We'll do our best to keep you and Marco afloat while you do that. Here, let me get under you.)

I felt another body pushing against me from beneath, and we rose towards the surface. Within minutes, my head was above water.

(All right, start morphing. As soon as your arms grow back, try and grab onto me, and DON'T LET GO. Guys, bring Marco over here. Let's keep them together.)

(We're trying,) Jake replied, (This isn't too easy... ah, where did those other dolphins get to?)

Fighting through the pain, I focused on demorphing, and felt my lower half split into three - my own tail and legs reemerged first. Then the changes slowly crept upwards along my body.

My wrist blades emerged before any other part of my arms, and they cut into Lee's flesh.

(Ah!)

He twitched, almost causing me to slide off.

(This is not working,) I said.

(I don't know what else to do... Jake? Cassie? I NEED somebody to help me with Toby.)

(Just hold on for a moment,) Cassie said, (Help's coming.)

I could feel something beneath my feet. Solid, but somewhat rubbery. Whatever it was rapidly rose up until it was out of the water. I rolled onto my back, and finished demorphing. Looking around me, I saw that all the others were also on this strange surface, in various stages of demorphing. I sat quietly for a few minutes, my relief at being alive balanced by fear of the endless waves that surrounded us.

"What happened?"

"I asked the whale for a ride," Cassie said, "It worked for you and the dolphins, so I figured if they're smart enough to understand Thought-Speech, then a whale should be as well."

"Hm. Three sentient species from the same planet. That is certainly... unusual. I'm actually surprised the Yeerks haven't bothered to look for any more."

"Unusual?" Marco said, "Seriously? Not that I've ever been to another planet, but... is that common for multiple intelligent species to evolve on the same planet?"

"It is more common than you might think," I said, "Yeerks and Gedds are from the same planet. And there used to be another race on my peoples' home planet, but the Arn are probably extinct now. So I am not surprised to find the same on this planet."

"Well, we're definitely surprised," Rachel said, "In eight thousand years of recorded history, there's nothing outside of mythology to suggest that animals are actually able to speak."

"Why would there be?" Cassie wondered, "They've clearly got a completely different way of communicating than we do. The only way Toby and I were able to talk to them is because we were in morph. Just because they don't have the same language skills as us, doesn't mean they aren't intelligent."

"Speaking of communicating," Jake said, "Didn't we come out all this way in the first place to ask for directions?"

"We did," Lee said, "So how about we morph back and get started on that?"