There were no stars in the sky. A bit of moon smudged through smog and cloud, but only the barest diffusion of light penetrated the trees; just enough to make faint, grasping shadows. Wind whispered against leaves and rustled conspiratorially through pine needles. Branches clawed at the sky like arms of drowning men. One branch brushed the head of the horse, nearly spooking it into a gallop. Once he'd overcome the foolish animal's instincts, he continued his nervous trot. The horse body had excellent night vision, but it wasn't used to keeping its footing in this conditions. And as if he wasn't already under enough pressure, the horse's instincts told it to shriek warnings of wolves and bears. Irin tried to calm his host, but it simply sent fresh waves of panic at him. Run away! Go back to the herd for the night! Idiot horse. This was the problem with sub-sentient life-forms as hosts; their first response to infestation was panic, and they had no second response. It was nearly as bad as hork-bajir.
Irin shouldn't have agreed to do this. Aftran probably wouldn't even had asked him had she known him a little better. But Margaret had wanted him to. -(It'll be good for you, Ir,)- Margaret had said. –(You won't be in any real danger.)-
-(No, no,)- Irin had replied. –(No, no. I think it would be a very bad idea. I do not feel comfortable with it at all.)- But Margaret had persuaded him, as she always did, and now Irin was in the middle of the woods trying to find the GPS coordinates programmed into his synthesizer so that he could meet with the YLF and Andalite bandits. The bandits! Andalites! He twitched at the thought. And the woods were not at all a pleasant place to be, and he suspected he was lost. He cursed Margaret feebly for getting him into this, and wished sorely she was here with him. There was really no reason she couldn't have come! But this horse was the new protocol, to protect their hosts from identification, and there had been no arguing with Aftran. Margaret perhaps could have argued with Aftran, but Margaret had been all in favor of dumping him into a horse, declaring that she needed a break more than once every three days from "a neurotic slug whining in my ear all day."
Neurotic. Slug. Whining. Ha! Big talk from an elderly pink monkey! Not that he had said as much to her face.
She needed a break more than once every three days from "a neurotic slug whining in my ear all day." Irin suspected she mostly wanted a cigarette, which she had firmly instructed him not to allow her to smoke, no matter what she might tell him while she had a cigarette in her hand.
Slug. Whiny.
Anyway, Irin wasn't one to dwell on petty comments made without proper regard to a yeerk's feelings.
"Essef?" a human called, and Irin practically jumped a foot into the air, hooves scrambling in panic, before he got control of himself. Of the horse. It was the horse's fault. "Is that you?" the human asked.
"Yall Essef," Irin confirmed. Essef was one of a few names anyone in the peace movement used with non-members. "Chell ret Endis?" The speech synthesizer made his throat itch.
"Of course I'm Endis," the human replied. He wore opaque glasses, a black face covering, a skullcap to conceal his hair, and shapeless clothing. "Did you bring your bandit?"
-(Emella cheresh ret ellio fimtee,)- a thought-speech voice answered, startling the horse into moving its hooves skittishly. We are already here.
"Show yourselves," Endis replied. His tone was cool but uncompromising.
No thought-speech response came immediately. Endis and Irin waited in dark stillness for a minute. Two minutes. Then an owl descended silently onto the ground and began demorphing. Irin watched in revulsion as a wormlike tail poked out of the owl's stomach with a distressing sound. The feathers melted away into pale skin, withering into strands, turning blue. A second set of legs pushed out of the back, grew hooves, settled into the ground. Ears grew bulbous, turned into eyes, then grew out of the misshapen head like time-lapsed vegetables. Now it was beginning to be recognizable: Andalite! Cruel, hateful Andalite! Half of the Andalite was recognizably formed before it had grown larger than the owl's size, but once began growing, it grew quickly. The process was mesmerizing and horrifying. Irin had never seen morphing before; he worked in logistics in the main pool, organizing feeding cycles, and had rarely been in the same room as Visser Three, let alone the bandits.
There was a moment of tension after Ax reformed. Jake, Cassie, and Tobias observed it as owls. Rachel was a grizzly a little ways off. Marco was a gorilla in a tree directly overhead. None of them had particularly expected this to be a trap, but they were being careful. They hadn't dealt with the YLF before, but they had with other yeerk underground movements, and general terror of Visser Three led to a steady population of traitors within any organization that opposed him.
-(We are most interested in hearing your plan,)- Ax said with cold politeness.
Estrin hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Several possibilities are under consideration. It would of course be optimal to preserve the Visser's host, but aside from the obvious difficulties associated with planning an attack for when the Visser most expects one—"
-(We will not participate in such a scheme,)- Ax said flatly. –(The abomination must be destroyed. We will not allow War Prince Alloran to be re-enslaved to some fresh vile yeerk.)- The hatred obvious in the Andalite's use of 'yeerk' alarmed Irin afresh. He knew Illim trusted the Andalite bandits, knew Aftran spoke highly of them, but this bandit's personality agreed with all the gravest understandings of Andalite xenophobia.
"I'm not surprised," Estrin said. "If you will help us, we have a more practical notion outlined. Visser Thirty-seven has discretely acquired a shipment of krt-snee." Krt-snee was a generic term for any medium-grade explosives sold by Skrit Na. It was what the Animorphs had used in their attack on the taxxon hive, and if that plan hadn't gone according to same, it hadn't been the explosives' fault. 'Medium strength' was an understatement, at least by human expectations.
-(That method sounds acceptable. How do you intend to make use of these?)- Ax asked.
-(Don't propose the pool,)- Jake warned in private thought-speech. –(Remember, we're dealing with yeerk humanitarians.)-
-(Yeerkitarians?)- Marco suggested. –(Wait, maybe not. That sounds like a diet where you can only eat yeerks.)-
-(There is a small facility in Montecito dedicated to the study of infant-rearing.)-
-(Do yeerks practice infant-rearing? I thought the grubs just sort of floated around the pool until they were developed.)- Cassie said.
-(Security measures are minimal, as it is a small and non-urgent operation. Given the high density of YLF members who have been transferred to the site, it should be no special problem to prepare the explosives.)-
-(And anyway, why would they even need to study infant rearing now?)- Cassie wondered.
"Gellef kem himehee cheh mihin fim cheher ged hellem yall ket feellos," the horse added hesitantly. "Chall gehen chemehen gall feellim chemeh ket yall fellee, ged filloo ket cheher mehin fallee."Another advantage of this facility is the mitigation collateral damage. The destruction of all life within the facility itself is unavoidable, but the facility is small and its location such that the explosion will be unlikely to injure any party nearby.
-(Um, Cassie, I'm pretty sure he means human infant rearing practices,)- Marco said.
-(This is where you come in,)- Endis continued. -(The bandits will stage a raid on the facility. Your incursion is the surest way to draw the Visser to any site, and more, in a condition where his paranoia of betrayal by subordinates will be temporarily reduced.)-
-(Baby farms like they have for the hork-bajir. You know. Containing infants until they're ready to be useful hosts. Conditioning them to accept the yeerks as their overlords,)- Marco elaborated.
-(Oh my god,)- said Cassie, mostly to herself. –(Of course I knew—but—I just didn't think they'd already be...)- she broke off.
-(Specific details can of course be determined at leisure, but some escape route will be arranged for your people, ensuring their safety while the explosives are detonated. Visser Three will be eliminated in his moment of weakness, mid-morph, when the facility is atomized.)-
-(Ax, ask whether there are child hosts present at the facility,)- Cassie said.
-(Ax, do not ask that. It's not something they'd expect Andalites to care about, and we don't Endis getting suspicious. The last thing we need is Visser thirty-seven figuring out we're human. Express further interest.)-
-(Yes, Prince Jake,)- Ax returned. To Endis and Essef he said, -(We are intrigued by this plot. Certainly, there are details which will need to be resolved, but we agree that doing so may wait for a future meeting.)-
-(We are not blowing up babies!)- Cassie exploded at Jake in private thought-speech. –(Don't tell me you even considered going along with this plan! Tell them it'll have to be a different facility.)-
-(Of course I'm not thinking of going along with it, Cassie,)- Jake said calmly. –(I'll figure something out later. For now, we just need them to think we're going along with this. We can't risk raising suspicions.)-
-(Very well,)- said Endis. –(We would like to meet again a week from now. I believe, though I cannot guarantee it, that Visser thirty-seven would like to meet you personally. How would you like us to contact you?)-
-(You may use the YPM as intermediary; we have established channels of communication with them.)-
-(Fine, Jake. I believe you,)- Cassie said. –(But if any babies die in an explosion in that lab, I don't care whose fault it looks like it was, I'm going to blame you. Because I'll know that's how you and Marco planned it.)-
-(Cassie, I'm really hurt you would say that,)- Jake said sincerely.
/
After the meeting broke up, Edriss walked through about two and a half miles of woods before he hit a road. He squinted around at the sky, pointed a scanner around overhead, checked the screen, grunted in satisfaction, confident he wasn't being followed. He walked north a short distance until he found his car, and drove back into Santa Barbara. Tobias double-checked the address, double-checked he had memorized the license plate as he passed back over the parked car, then circled away to the barn for the debrief. Marco and Ax would find that the vehicle was registered to one Harold Lime. The Chee data network would turn him up as the host to Erim 235. Erim was a medium rank yeerk recently brought to earth in Visser thirty-seven's entourage as part of a promotion; the same promotion was responsible for winning him a human host over the ged he'd been stuck with since he was old enough to infest.
/
Irin was flooded with relief when he finally squeezed back into Margaret. He spread himself throughout the shape of her mind like a favorite jacket, all the pockets of memory, personality, limb function. He stretched her limbs to their fullest extent, before drawing back to partial control. He'd been gone for only a few hours, but they had taken years off his life. Doubtless Margaret was right that it was a good experience for him, Margaret was right about most things, but still, it couldn't possibly be such a good experience that it would be to his advantage any time soon.
-(So,)- said Margaret. –(Tell me everything.)-
/
-(Around the end of all this, the YPM representative at a meeting with the YLF, probably a fake meeting we're not invited to, is going to find himself captured by YLF controllers and starved of Kandrona until he gives Iffat the identities of the whole YPM plus Aftran's location,)- Marco said in private thought speech as he and Jake flew back to their houses. –(And whatever 'escape route' we're given will be a dud. Either it won't get us out of the blast in time, or it will lead us straight into an ambush. It depends how careful Iffat is being, whether he wants us alive for hosts or is willing to settle for just having us out of the way.)-
-(As far as shutting down the YPM, that's one way he might do it, but not the only way. Regardless, we can trust the YPM can take care of themselves.)- Jake said. He sighed, a single deep exhale. –(And about the escape route; yes, obviously. The question is, what are we going to do about it?)-