Chapter Text
The Plisam Proposals
Foreign Policy Considerations for a Post-Invasion Earth
Authors: Celia H., Eva L., Dan B., anonymous authors
Table of Contents:
1. Executive Summary
2. Who speaks for Earth?
2a. Inadequacy of the United Nations
2b. The multinational approach
3. Andalites
3a. History of Andalite relations with other species
3b. Andalite-Human relations before and during the invasion
3c. Concerns about imperialist encroachment and aggression
4. Yeerks
4a. Origins and expansion of the Yeerk Empire
4b. Status of the Yeerk homeworld
4c. Repatriation and status of Yeerks currently on Earth
5. Hork-Bajir
5a. Kref Magh and the free Hork-Bajir
5b. Status of the Hork-Bajir homeworld
5c. Repatriation and status of Hork-Bajir currently on Earth
5d. Opportunities for alliance and exchange
6. Taxxons
6a. Seaside Hive, Sky Hive, and the free Taxxons
6b. Status of the Taxxon homeworld
6c. Repatriation and status of Taxxons and Hives currently on Earth
7. Other species
7a. Chee
7b. Leerans
7c. Gedd
2 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
28 hours before the Herdmoot
June Finley and Tasdan
“He’s alive!” I gasped. Mike looked dead, shattered and pale, but Athryne lay beside him, pinned under a chunk of concrete. Tasdan rushed over to lick her face. Louder, I shouted: “He’s alive! Get help!”
«On it,» said Jake. Above me, a seagull took off from the wreckage.
Mike breathed shallowly. Athryne’s black eyes opened. “Tasdan. Was that an Animorph?”
“Yes,” he said, miserably.
“Why are you with them? Didn’t they get your son killed?”
That was when I remembered: this wasn’t Athryne. She had been taken. Tasdan pulled back and growled at her, but kept his teeth to himself: Yeerk or no, he would never hurt her.
“You’re in a bind, aren’t you?” not-Athryne went on, as if she weren’t half-crushed under concrete. “You’ll want to send Mike to a hospital, but we’re in all the hospitals. Do you want him free or dead?”
“The Animorphs destroyed your Kandrona generator!” I cry sometimes when I’m furious, while Tasdan bares his teeth. “We’ll take you to the hospital, and he’ll be free, and you’ll be dead, you little worm!”
Mike’s eyelids fluttered. Athryne looked down. “Ah. So they got what they wanted after all. You may live to regret it. This will leave us desperate. Yeerks are like humans that way—we’ll try anything, if we’re starving.”
“I don’t care what you do,” I choked through angry tears. Tasdan licked them away. “I just want my husband back.”
“Just walk away,” Tasdan said in my ear. “The building could collapse any minute. We can’t carry them. Someone else will get them.”
“Mike’s still in there,” I whispered back. “I can’t leave him alone.”
“You’re right,” the Yeerk said in Athryne’s voice. “I’ll probably die. Maybe I’ll ask you to end it quickly for me. But before we get to that, I might as well tell you something about David.”
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Don’t say his name! What would you know?”
“His first word,” the Yeerk said. “Go. He said it to his toy car.” A tear spilled sideways from Mike’s swollen-shut eye.
I’d been a Controller, too. Yeerks get strangely attached, sometimes, to things from your life. As if it were theirs.
“I saw him,” the Yeerk said. “In a different host. He was in lion morph. Visser Three—Esplin 9466—told him he’d free you and Mike if he defected. He wanted to. He would have, if the Animorphs hadn’t stopped him.” More tears down Mike’s face. “I think they killed him, June. He was too great a risk to them. They couldn’t trust him not to sell them out for your sake. And I don’t know why I care this much!”
“Our poor boy,” Tasdan whispered. It rang so true, that he would try something so desperate and stupid to save us.
“If you care,” I said, holding up my Dracon beam for Athryne to see, “then get out of him. I’ll finish it.”
I saw a growing gray shape in Mike’s ear. I said, “Thank you.”
4 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
26 hours before the Herdmoot
Yocheved Ne’eman and Zachor
I sent the Animorphs to my house to sleep. It was locked and had a security system, but none of that would stop them. The Andalite stayed with us, because apparently Andalites don’t need to sleep as much. He morphed this weird alien hippo beetle thing and cleared some safe paths out of the jail as chemical fires burned in the collapsed basement.
Some of the inmates just needed safe rides home. Those were the easy ones. Everything else was a nightmare.
There were the ones who needed somewhere to go with no Yeerks in the mix. Those I sent to the drop points for the safe houses, praying that they could take in this many more. There were the ones who needed medical attention, but we didn’t dare send to the hospitals, which all had Controllers on staff. Them I sent with my sister Malka, a nurse practitioner, back to the synagogue. She swore a blue streak over all the injuries that were there because of long-term neglect, but took them with her.
Then there were the Controllers. The obvious ones, anyway. The prison guards.
We didn’t have the manpower to keep them all locked up while their Yeerks starved. But we couldn’t let them leave and hurt more people. Zachor said, so gently, You might have to give the order—
Renata emerged from the rubble holding a blaring Yeerk communicator. “Anybody speak Galard?” she said.
Hedrick Chapman took the communicator and listened while I stunned Controllers who tried to get up and make trouble. When I got back to him, he said, “There are two announcements going on repeat. They’re both offers of spaceship rides up to a Kandrona generator. One of them is from the Yeerk Peace Movement, for anyone willing to give up hosts and Empire. The other is from Visser Five.”
Maybe you won’t have to give that order after all, Zachor said.
I walked back to the Controllers we had rounded up in the staff parking lot. I took a deep, steadying breath. Everyone else was either helping the inmates, or couldn’t do this. So I had to.
“Listen,” I called out to the Controllers who were conscious. “I’m giving you a choice. The Yeerk Peace Movement is offering Kandrona to everyone who gives up their host. So you can come with me, get on one of their spaceships, and leave your host here.” I tightened my hand around my Dracon beam. “Or you and your host can die together.” I looked at all the drawn, tired faces of the humans and Hork-Bajir who were here against their will. I knew. I’d been one of them, just a month ago. “Sorry.”
“You can’t do it,” a Hork-Bajir-Controller rasped from a sprawl on the ground. “You want our hosts to live.”
“I don’t want to,” I admitted. “Maybe I can’t. But there’s an Andalite warrior here, and some Animorphs. As far as I can tell, they’re willing to do anything. So. Who’s coming with me?”
6 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
24 hours before the Herdmoot
Nazneen Begum and Bhaanu
For a blind person, the key to orientation and mobility at home is consistency. If everything is always in the same place, you can find it without tripping. Of course, it’s hard to keep everything in your house consistent when you have twenty-odd refugees living in it, which is how I ended up braining myself on a pan while trying to make breakfast.
While I screamed and swore, Bhaanu yelled, “Who hung a pan up on a hook? We don’t do that here!”
Shuffling footsteps into the kitchen. “Sorry,” said Leo. “I didn’t realize you wouldn’t…”
“See it?” I snapped, clutching my head. “I’m blind! I can only see wherever Bhaanu looks, and he was busy getting cereal from the pantry!”
TSEEEEEEWWWW! TSEEEEEWWWW!
“What the fuck was that?” I said, high and panicky.
“Dracon fire,” said Leo. “Not too close. Sit down, I’ll get you your cereal.”
I wasn’t too proud to refuse. Bhaanu put down the Grape-Nuts and joined me at the kitchen table; at least nobody had moved that. Slipping into four-eye, I saw more people come in, hugging their dæmons. Everyone kept twitching in the direction the Dracon fire came from, even though there was no window there. Dianne sat next to me at the kitchen table, holding Willow close.
It was a good thing I had such a big house. There was always another place to put a former Controller—the study, the laundry room, the attic. My parents let me have it when they moved back to Mumbai. They even paid for the maid to keep working here, though I had to fire her eventually, because I didn’t know if she was a Controller. I had space for all of them, and Abba and Amma’s money to keep us in food and bedding.
But none of that meant I knew how to deal with this: shell-shocked people flinching at weapons I barely understood. Loren had warned me about the Yeerks, but she hadn’t told me what to say to someone who could barely get out of bed because a Yeerk fried their brain.
“Who else wants cereal?” Leo said.
“I’ll make tea for anyone who wants some,” Dianne said, and got up.
Divon, a teenager with a frog dæmon who’d just come in from the drop point, took Dianne’s seat next to me. “Don’t worry,” he said to all of us at the kitchen table. “I just saw the Animorphs and an Andalite earlier this morning. They saved me. They’re gonna save all of us.”
“Nazneen knows one of the Animorphs,” said Wunmi. Madra had her little head sandwiched between Wunmi’s arm and side, even though the Dracon fire had stopped, I realized. “What do you think?”
Loren cared. About her son, about her blind community, about her church. Enough to do something about it. Enough to fight. But she was just some lady. Sometimes, she’d been exactly the meek, self-hating blind adult I never wanted to become.
“Yeah. They’re gonna save us,” I said.
8 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
22 hours before the Herdmoot
Naomi Levy and Caedhren
The journalists who wouldn’t take Dan’s calls a week ago were calling him now. The voice-mails he’d left them didn’t sound so crazy anymore. He was on the phone more often than not. And me? I was at an ugly U.S. military issue desk surrounded by piles of paper. Welcome to my life these days.
“Jordan,” I said without looking up. “Can you pass me the new printouts?”
“Which ones are those?”
Caedhren hopped over and pecked at them, and Jordan passed them over. I added them to my stack of statements and essays from Yeerks, mostly auto-translated by Yeerk software I didn’t have too much confidence in, and looked up. My Jordan, bored, scared, and still helping me. “Thank you, sweetie.”
Jordan swung Tseycal’s wingtip back and forth with her fingertips like a child’s arm waving. “You think people will like them?” At my blank look, she added, “The papers?”
I buried my face in my hands. “Nobody likes policy papers. They’re boring. The hope is that they get people to do what you want them to. I don’t know if anyone outside our network is reading them at all.”
“The governor was here until like, two days ago,” Jordan pointed out. “She read them.”
I grunted into my hands. I had no idea what Governor Hernandez thought of them. She was too much of a politician to show it.
The office door opened. I peeked through my fingers. It was Dan.
“Dad. Tell Mom her papers don’t suck.”
“They’re not my papers,” I said. “Other people are writing them. Some of them are completely bonkers, if you ask me. I’m just editing them together.”
“They’re kind of your papers!”
Dan sat down next to Jordan, Gheselle in his lap like a Bond villain’s dæmon. “Apparently they’re attached to the message the Pool Ship sent out to get everyone to join them up there. And I’m sending them to journalists who’re ready to listen. They’re worth reading, Naomi.”
The door opened again. “Everybody to the mess,” said Sergeant Li. “I have an announcement.”
We all gathered there. Not just us refugees from the Hork-Bajir valley, ordinary families who knew way too much about aliens, but the soldiers in Sergeant Li’s unit. The refugees clumped together at two tables near the front. Everyone fell quiet at Sergeant Li’s sharp look.
“Governor Peretti has activated all National Guard units to move into Santa Barbara County. We’re not going, because Governor Peretti is one of them. We’re going against orders, so we might have trouble coming our way.
“Another announcement. We got a message from our allies in orbit.” Li nodded at Peter. “We’re going to have spaceships landing here at the base, tomorrow or the next day. It’s going to be some kind of diplomatic meeting between humans and aliens. We’re going to make sure no one interferes, and we’re going to set everything up so it runs smoothly.
“Get ready. History is happening here soon. Everything is on the line.”
10 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
20 hours before the Herdmoot
Rachel Berenson and Abineng
Gonrod went up on one of the Bug fighters to the Pool Ship. Herdmoot business. Jake, Marco, and I stayed groundside with the Partisanim.
“Every time we’ve met up with a shuttle going to the Pool Ship,” I said, between bites of a sandwich in the synagogue kitchen, “there’s been some kind of fuckery.”
Rabbi Yocheved told us that on her first trip, the Controllers had tried to go back on their deal and take over the Bug fighter. Gonrod, the Partisanim, and the free Hork-Bajir pilots put down the mutiny, and only half the hosts survived. The second trip, a bunch of cops tried to arrest the Partisanim for illegal weapons, and bring them God knew where since the jail was wrecked. I’d killed three of them, and I wasn’t sorry. And just now, with Gonrod, there was a dogfight with another fighter on their way down.
Marco looked at the battered Yeerk communicator from the jail. “We know where their ships are coming down, right?”
“It changes each time,” said Andrew, who had learned Yeerk navigation coordinates while infested, “but I can work them out for you.”
Jake smiled the smile that lets me know we’re still cousins. “Let’s see how they like it.”
Rabbi Yocheved said, “We need to escort people to the Peace Movement ships.”
“Keep doing that,” Jake said. “We can do this ourselves. We’ll meet you back here after.”
Andrew worked out that the next shuttle to the Blade Ship would land at Goleta Point. The end of a peninsula was a pretty easy place for us to lie in wait for Controllers. We flew out to the point, and told some surfers in wetsuits to pack up and go home now, seriously, now, until they finally listened. We hid in a stand of trees along the main road to the beach, got into our battle morphs, and waited. It was a beautiful place, all sea breezes and dune grass. Then two cops came along the sandy path, followed by three inmates from the jail, still in uniform. They must have all been Controllers who got away.
We charged out from the trees. The cops fired their guns, but I came out first, and the bullets were just annoying to an elephant. I grabbed one of the cops in my trunk, ignoring it when he shot down at my legs. Marco grabbed an inmate, and Jake pinned the other cop down with a paw to his back. The other two inmates froze, terrified.
«Leave,» he said. «Drop your weapons, get out of here, go to the shuttle for the Pool Ship, and live. Or stay here and die. Or drop your weapons and go starve, I don’t care. But you’re not getting to the Blade Ship.»
“You won’t kill us!” said my Controller. “You want these humans free!”
«Haven’t you heard of me?» I said. «I’m Rachel.» His eyes widened, but it was too late. I reared back and threw him into the ocean.
12 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
18 hours before the Herdmoot
Celia Hernandez and Olimpomonte
I chugged water to clear the taste from my mouth. “You’ve lived on this stuff for years? This is worse than army food! You don’t even have coffee!”
“You don’t need coffee when you’re infested,” Eva said, spooning down defrosted goop like it was nothing. “The Yeerk just leans on your brain stem and you’re awake.”
“Christ almighty,” I said. Next to the long steel mess hall table, Mercurio leaned into Olimpomonte’s side. Oli licked his neck feathers. It was so nice to see my old friend Eva again.
I rubbed my temples. “I keep waiting for someone to show up who actually knows how to do this. The UN or the NSA or somebody must have someone who’s trained to be an ambassador to aliens. I’m just supposed to serve the people of California, and God only knows if I still technically have that job.”
“The person who technically has that job is mind-controlled by a Yeerk,” Eva said flatly. “And I’ll bet you anything that whoever the UN or NSA has on payroll as an alien diplomat is an asshole. You’re here, you were elected by the people of California, and it’s your constituents who got hit worst by the invasion. You’re qualified.”
I forced more goop down my throat and grimaced. “Those Andalite pendejos should send down people and tech to help figure out what the Yeerks even did. Think of the commissions to figure out what the Yeerks did to the city - that whole Pool complex! The community center! You said they took over a slaughterhouse at one point? And Web Access America? It’s a mess! From what you said, this whole war is their fault anyway, and they must have resources to throw around if they can afford to send a fleet to blow us to hell.”
Eva snorted. “We’ll see. The Andalites don’t like sharing tech. You’ll have to fight to get anything out of them.”
Some of my goop dripped from my spoon to the muddy floor, and I swear I saw the alien fungus eat it. I shivered. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ll settle for not getting blown to hell or conquered. But why not aim higher? I think they owe us.”
“I’m with you. But you might be surprised by who ends up being our best allies going forward. The Andalites look more familiar than the other aliens. Almost cute. But having Sky Hive,” she said, gesturing at the dripping red walls, “on our side will count for a lot more with the Taxxons than any of our ragtag Andalite friends will count with the Andalites. And the Taxxons might be cannibals, but they don’t have a track record of occupying other planets and committing genocide.”
“You want me to be an ambassador to Taxxons next?” I can’t do it, I thought at Oli, because I couldn’t say it where Sky Hive could hear. That’s my limit. My bridge too far.
Eva shrugged. “Maybe not you. But somebody should.”
14 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
16 hours before the Herdmoot
Kalij Hamee
When Hork-Bajir-Controllers came to the Pool Ship shuttles to give up their hosts, their former hosts came up too, since they couldn’t exactly stay in Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, Elgat Kar was still in Los Padres Forest, so the rest of us had to do our best with the new-frees.
The Pool Ship had sleeping quarters for Hork-Bajir. We’d asked Sky Hive for a cargo bay instead. Better to sleep on thick beds of fungus and mud than in the warehouses the Yeerks had made for us. We clumped in small groups around the large space, the industrial lights of the ship tinted red and hrala-gold by Sky Hive’s biofilm. Tom Berenson and I sat on crates of who-knew-what, now covered in slime, with Rof Shisa, a new-free who arrived here two hours ago. We let the infirmary check on him first, then gave him freeze-dried bark and water. His wounds were closed. Now he seemed ready to talk.
Father lay in a wallow of mud next to the crate where Rof sat. He was well enough to leave the infirmary, but not well enough to do much more than lie there and listen. But listening counts for a lot.
“Animorphs saved me,” Rof Shisa said. “On the spaceship. The Yeerk changed its mind and wanted to run. I was very scared.” Father gave a low sympathetic hum. I extended my tail to him, and he caught the end of mine with the end of his, a tiny cautious touch. “The Animorphs caught me. Held a Dracon beam to my head. Told the Yeerk to choose. The Yeerk chose to live.”
If Tom felt any turmoil at the mention of the Animorphs, he controlled his feelings for Rof’s sake. “How do you feel?” he said gently, in our language.
“Like… I do not know what is next,” Rof said in a small voice. “It is better to be free. But now, I decide what I do next. Not the Yeerk.”
“It’s hard,” Tom said. He would know, after all. “But you can trust yourself. You know what’s best for you, more than any Yeerk could.”
“I heard there will be a circle with the hruthin,” Rof said: scared, hopeful. “What will happen to us after?”
It was a big question to answer. I stalled. “What do you want to happen after?”
“I want to stay with you,” Rof said fiercely, gripping more of my tail with his. “The free Hork-Bajir of Kref Magh. I heard stories from the cages about you, from those forced to fight you in the forest. Now that I meet you, I see you are greater than the stories.”
“Many of the free Hork-Bajir want to go back to our homeworld,” I said. “But many of us want to stay in Kref Magh. On Earth. What do you think?”
“I never had a home,” Rof said. “Could I be home with you?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “We can plant the Tree of Life wherever we are. Together.”
16 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
14 hours before the Herdmoot
Helen
The Friends of Aftran 942
Helen
Is anybody heading for the Pool Ship any sooner than @Madra’s Gedd group? I’m 4 hours away from the end of my feeding cycle. I’m going to hit fugue really soon
Helen
I’m so scared. Somebody PLEASE help me
Derane2
The Deranes need help too. Our hosts left for Seaside Hive. I’m getting close to my time. Is there anybody who can get us out???
Class1Species
I really hate to put my host at risk, but I’ll check with her and see if she’ll agree. She’s going to have to make the trip sooner or later, anyway, if I’m going to live through this.
I don’t know exactly how ClassOne got us out. All I know is, she told us where in the Pool to go, and then some force decanted me from the Pool into a fluid that tasted like death.
“I have two hours left, I think,” I told Derane, my feel-fields fizzling. The death-fluid started to become the Hett Simplat Pool of my birth, where I was about to return, if I was lucky. “How long does it take for a ship to return to the Pool Ship from Earth?”
“Normally, half an hour,” said Derane.
Normally. Hah.
Derane extended xyr palps toward mine. I shrank back. “The fugue is starting,” I said. “Are you sure want to be palp-to-palp as I…”
“I couldn’t live with myself,” said Derane, “if I let you go through it alone.”
Then, I was a young Yeerk again, early in the invasion. Excited for the privilege of a human host. I imagined that my host would be huge, mighty. Compared to me, he was. But then I realized that Rashmi was younger than me. Delicate, for a boy his age. His dæmon was a minnow. Other boys tormented him. When I fought back, contemptuous of these humans who dared look down on me, Rashmi was pathetically grateful. I despised him for it. He ought to have cursed me.
Somewhere far away, my world shook and flowed. I was in a Pool, but there was still no relief to my hunger. Alone, until a presence returned. “Hang in there. We’re on our way, Helen.”
Helen Keller. She allowed me to understand my own formless thoughts. Rashmi wrote an essay about her for school. She was a deaf-blind human who fought to change her world. It meant everything I’d learned was a lie. To be blind and deaf was not to be helpless. I didn’t need to torment Rashmi anymore to be free. It was easier for a freed host to slip the net, back then.
The Pool quaked. Someone said, “I think there’s an attack on the ship—”
Suddenly, I felt the electricity of the entire ship I was in. Every component, inside and out. My sonar sensed a vast presence in the dark: a deep-water predator.
YOUR PAWNS DESTROY ONE ANOTHER, ELLIMIST, it said. AND SOON, MY PAWNS WILL TURN ALL OF THEM TO ASH.
18 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
12 hours before the Herdmoot
Anthrel-Genediad-Halas
«Gonthil!» I cried. «Gonthil, come, we’re getting the call!»
The requested connection had no identification attached, but the string of numbers matched the one given by our friend Inias. I accepted. When the hologram appeared in our scoop, it took everything in me not to flinch. There was a split-hearted Andalite, fur tanning with age, with two hard eyes, and nubs where stalk-eyes should be. With my own stalk-eye, I saw Gonthil flinch; fortunately, she was out of range of the holo-camera. She stepped within range now.
«Anthrel-Genediad-Halas and Gonthil-Forlan-Tarmenel,» said the hologram. «Inias told me you deserve my trust. Call me Mallorm. What do you ask of the Twisted River?»
We shouldn’t have known about the Twisted River. The only reason we did was because of our singular fellowship: parents, shorms, all of us who secretly bent the rules for the vecols we loved. For years we had helped our friend Inias find a way out of seclusion for his daughter, and her escape turned out to be the Twisted River, a top-secret unit of vecol spies within Andalite Intelligence.
«We,»—not precisely “we,” but our new allies Forlay and Noorlin and their journalist contacts—«will soon receive an urgent broadcast from the front lines. We believe that Andalite High Command will attempt to cut off the transmission. We need to be sure that does not happen.»
Mallorm’s two eyes narrowed. It was hard to read their deformed face. «Inias’s trust is not enough for a request like that. Why should I defy my superiors in High Command? For the life of your son?»
Of course Mallorm knew about Mertil.
«You know they are hypocrites. You know they are unjust,» Gonthil began hotly.
I tucked my hands behind my torso and flicked my fingers. «Hush! Who could know that better than a vecol in their ranks?» Mercifully, she shut up.
«I have spoken with Prince Elfangor’s parents,» I said. «There is much about Elfangor, Aximili, and Earth that the military has hidden. They created a cover-up to preserve Elfangor’s reputation. They mean to utterly destroy Earth, in no small part to erase the evidence of their failures. This broadcast, made public, will ensure they cannot get away with it. And perhaps—more of their abuses could be exposed. As a consequence.»
It was a gamble. I did not know for certain whether the Twisted River had been secretly exploited the same way that Elfangor and Aximili had. But I did know how the world worked for vecols.
«Your son,» said Mallorm. «Is he a leader in this… resistance?»
So they did not know everything, after all. Gonthil said proudly, «Yes.»
«Then for the sake of what he may become,» said Mallorm, «we will help. I will send you a contact code. Include it as an administrator on the stream, when it comes in. Your discretion is…» They glowered. «Recommended.» The hologram cut out.
«Well. It is good you took the lead,» said Gonthil. «I would have soaked the kindling.»
20 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
10 hours before the Herdmoot
Cassandra Clark and Quintavion
The shuttle runs between Santa Barbara and the Pool Ship had gotten less dangerous over the past few hours. There had been desperate fights on the ground at the landing sites, dogfights in space between fighters from the Pool and Blade Ships, and betrayals by Yeerks who decided at the last minute they couldn’t give up their hosts. I was running on too little sleep, catching naps on Bug fighters between bloody fights whenever we landed to get more Yeerks to safety.
But now, according to Mertil, the Andalite fleet was getting close. Yeerks were starving in untold numbers. Nobody wanted to fight anymore. They just wanted to live.
I was on board one of the fighters commandeered by the Hork-Bajir who’d returned from their homeworld. Gonrod piloted, with a free Hork-Bajir and a Taxxon on sensors and weapons. We came in for a landing at an alpaca ranch in the foothills, not knowing who was waiting for us in the dark. I was already partway to moose morph, stepping out of the ship, but there was no violence. There was a group of Gedd-Controllers, who must have taken advantage of the night to come unnoticed, and a few humans, all carrying tanks and gallon containers full of Yeerks. They all flinched away from my half-morphed form.
«Just a precaution,» I said. «I won’t hurt you. Go in.» I morphed the rest of the way to moose, watched everyone come in, and went for a trot around the ship to see if any trouble lay in wait. Nothing. I came back and demorphed.
The Controllers clung to the walls of the small pool of the ship. All the tanks were open, emptied in. Slowly, Yeerks dropped out of the Controllers’ ears to join the rest. Gonrod said to the Gedd, «Do you wish to come with us?» It was an offer we made to non-human hosts, who couldn’t easily hide in the city.
The newly freed Gedd accepted. I held onto an old lady as her Yeerk left her, walked her back to the van her Yeerk had driven here, guided by Quincy through the dark. When I got back to the ship, there was one human-Controller left: a teenager with a crab dæmon half-tucked in a hoodie pocket. He looked down at me with tired glazed eyes. I tensed.
“I won’t attack,” the Yeerk said. “I just have a question, Cassie. Why do this to us? We were losing.”
I wanted to say that I’d opposed this attack on the Kandrona. It was true, but it missed the point. The virus had been my idea. At the tearing claws of monstrosity, we’d become monsters too.
I stared back. In my hand, Quincy bared his fangs. “Your host must be thinking: ‘Why do this to us? We were just kids.’ Explain that to him.” I grabbed the boy by the hair and shoved the side of his face into the Pool. In his other ear, I snarled, “Then get out.”
22 hours since the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
8 hours before the Herdmoot
Gafinilan of Theresh
On the Blade Ship built for an Andalite-Controller, there was something most un-Yeerk-like: a room with a garden. It was planted with the standard space-friendly grasses, with a pool for drinking. There was a passable hologram of an Andalite sky on the ceiling. It was here that I fed, and here that the new Visser Five had kept me since her coup, my tail blade capped and weighted so I could barely lift it.
Still, it was unquestionably an improvement. I had a few rane of solitude and relative freedom before she returned.
“Gafinilan,” she said, settling by the pool with her host’s colorful dæmon in his tank. “I have questions for you.”
«Why do you ask, rather than infest me to find out yourself?»
“I’m dreshked positive,” Visser Five said easily. I had heard before that her human host was genuinely voluntary, but had not quite believed it until now. “And I’d rather not give the honor of an Andalite host to any of my eager subordinates, even temporarily. I will if I have to, though.” She smiled up at me. “I can also give you back your little plants, as a reward. I’m not Esplin—I have no… Andalite fetish.”
I could have refused, and been re-infested. I could have kicked the tank, or her. She would fire her Dracon beam, call for guards, maybe get me killed. But I had a reason to cooperate, beyond the promise of getting Mertil’s and my uruthoul back.
«What do you wish to know?» I said cautiously.
“Your knowledge of the Andalite military is somewhat outdated, but you’re still one of the best sources I have,” she said. “There are three Dome ships approaching this system, with ten support vessels. Given that your people must also guard their homeworld… how many ships do you think are left around my homeworld?”
So in her hour of extremity, the Visser wished to return home. I could relate.
It was unthinkable treason to voluntarily reveal Andalite military secrets to a Visser. But I could trade my outdated secrets for a much greater tactical advantage.
The new Visser Five did not know, because the old Visser Five jealously guarded everything about his Andalite hosts, about my telepathic bond with Mertil. It had lain dormant since my capture, because Mertil had wisely closed his mind to it. But Mertil could calculate how long it would take until nearly every Yeerk aboard the Blade Ship was infected with dreshked. At some point, the risk that I was infested with a dreshked negative Yeerk would drop low enough that it would become safe to open his end of our bond.
Once that happened, nothing could stop my shorm, the best fighter pilot I knew, from coming after the Blade Ship.
«No more than one Dome ship, and it will likely be an older model,» I said, and Visser Five’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected my immediate cooperation.
But I had to stay alive, so Mertil could find me.
24 hours since the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
6 hours before the Herdmoot
Taylor Dejean and Marling
The maps had come back from the scouts. A holographic planet hovered before me, surrounded with circling blinking lights like orbiting stars.
Sometimes, I let Korin use my mouth, and Marling talks back to her. It feels almost natural.
“Gafinilan was right,” Korin said. “They’ve over-committed to this system. There are holes in the blockade.” She picked up Marling’s tank from the floor and set it in my lap. She swam among waving plastic fronds, bright orange and white against the deep blue gravel bed. “How would you like to be queen of a planet, my dear?”
My heart swooped in my chest. I had seen She-Ra on TV as a kid. What kind of girl didn’t want to be a space princess?
Marling was more practical. “How are we supposed to do that? Even with the Blade Ship, there must be millions of Yeerks on the homeworld…”
“Our enemies have given us a gift,” Korin said. Reflected in Marling’s tank, my face might have been hers instead of mine. “The Yeerks back home have no immunity against off-world viruses. None. Any Pool that doesn’t surrender, all we have to do is give the dreshked a vector…”
Marling pushed Korin for details, distracting her while I quickly sectioned off part of my mind. After Korin got sick, I heard whispers from other voluntaries about how to do it. The virus lets you take back whatever you want from your Yeerk, but there’s a trick to doing it without them noticing. In that secret part of my mind, I thought: What happened to those Yeerk babies because of the virus wasn’t right. And if Korin, if we, do that on purpose, that won’t be right either.
Marling whispered into the secret place: But it’s too late to turn back now. We can’t just go home. And even if we did, our parents and everyone will know what we did. They’ll call us what the involuntaries call us. Traitor.
“What do I get out of it?” Marling demanded. “Your planet is ugly.”
“The Andalite military bases there will be more to your taste,” Korin said, pulling up a hologram of one: a force field dome with alien plants and low, half-open buildings. “We’ll take them over and you can rule them however you like. Sound good?”
All of the hosts on the Blade Ship, living on an alien planet under my rule. Taylor and Marling: Princess of Power. “Yeah,” said Marling. Sure. That’s good enough, isn’t it? she asked me.
Korin hoisted Marling’s tank on my back and walked from our quarters to the bridge. She told the Taxxon at navigation, “Set a course for the homeworld.” She grinned. “Forget Earth. It’s time to take what’s ours back from the Andalites.”
It was cool, to be on the bridge of a huge spaceship and have everyone look to me for what to do. Cooler than being some girl in her bedroom with her parents cooking dinner downstairs. Isn’t it, Marling? Isn’t it?
26 hours since the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
4 hours before the Herdmoot
Chee-pulim
Hett Simplat Pool
#friends-of-pulim
This is an encrypted channel administered by @Pulim, a Guardian of the Galaxy and a Chee (see FAQ) who intends to leave this sector of space as soon as it is safe to do so, and welcomes Yeerks who desire the same. Membership by invitation only. Exercise discretion.
Derane2
I just can’t take it anymore. I was palp-to-palp with my friend as she died of starvation. She was a champion of the Peace Movement, and she died horribly because of what the Animorphs did. I want nothing to do with whatever world they plan to dream up with the Andalites, and I want nothing to do with the fucking Empire. I hope they all dry up. [Emoji of a Yeerk alone, in the dark. Indicates spiritual starvation, total despair.]
WaveRider
What if we go to Kelbrid space? I’ve been going around the Pool Ship a bit with a Taxxon partner, and there’s a Kelbrid on board, you know. I hear the Andalites are terrified of them.
Pulim
@WaveRider Not a bad thought, but remember that we’re going to need to negotiate our exit with the Andalites, whether we like it or not. The Animorphs promised to secure an exit for me, but there are limits, and I think the limit might be at “allow Yeerks into the territory of the big bad scary Kelbrid.”
Velger
Do we have any hope of negotiating an exit with the Andalites at all?
Pulim
I think yes, so long as we take a ship with no weapons, and every Yeerk on board tests dreshked positive. That leaves us vulnerable, of course, but so would staying on Earth.
Janath
@Pulim, do you know where the Iskoort world is?
Pulim
@Janath Yes. One of the Chee went there, and shared her experience on our network.
[A flood of surprised emojis.]
Generation Freedom
WHAT?! Can you get us there?!
Pulim
It’s a very long way away. Even with a favorable Z-space configuration, it would take longer than some of your lifetimes to get there.
Generation Freedom
I say it’s worth it!
Deinfestation
I do too. But are you willing to commit, @Pulim? You’re not a Yeerk. Why do you want this? Why did you make this message well to begin with?
Pulim
I am tired of Earth. Tired of the fate that my creators left for me. I want to do something new. I figured if I made this message well, you all would come up with an interesting adventure for me to try. And you have.
Pulim
Anyway, if I don’t like the Iskoort world, I can try something else next. I’ve lived for millennia, and my systems show no signs of breakdown yet.
Sulp Niar
And if you decide you’re bored partway through the trip?
Pulim
It took at least 1500 years before I started to get bored of Earth. The odds are good that I won’t.
Pulim
So. Is it a bet you’re willing to take?
28 hours since the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
2 hours before the Herdmoot
Gonrod-Isfall-Sonilli
«Express more movement,» Mertil said. «Not just your stalk-eyes. Shift your weight occasionally—react with your tail—»
«Am I your aristh?» I snapped. Although, in a way, this was better than my time at the academy. Back then, there had been many standards of conduct I had failed to meet, but no one would explain my shortfalls so straightforwardly. I had simply been uncouth and primitive, and forced to learn for myself how to appear otherwise.
«You must convince the world that you are me,» Mertil said, «so in this matter, yes. You are my aristh. See, you’re angry, so your tail should twitch up—»
My rage burned hot. «No matter what you teach me in the next few hours, I will never be the perfect Great Gardens warrior you were! I’ve morphed you; is that not enough to fool them all?» I spread my, his, tail in a broad curve, then realized how I must seem. «Ah. I did not mean—»
Mertil blinked rapidly in embarrassment. «I did not mean to insult you, either. I was once—I try not to be so, so descended from Great Gardens as I am. It is only—I need this to work!»
«I am no fool, Mertil. It is not the Herdmoot tormenting you. Say what is wrong and be done. My people say…» I made the signs for removing debris caught in the hoof, modified to Great Gardens sign-dialect.
Without a tail to lower, it was harder to see the fight drain from Mertil, but I noticed his stalk-eyes slump. «You heard that the Blade Ship fled to Z-space.»
I turned my palm up in acknowledgment.
«Some Yeerk defectors have confirmed,» Mertil whispered, «that Gafinilan is still aboard the Blade Ship.»
I froze. I wanted to offer comfort, but I had been very rude to Mertil in the past, and right now, I looked like the ghost of the model soldier he could no longer be. I demorphed, then said, «I knew him.» Mertil’s main eyes locked on me. «I should have given my condolences long ago, but I—I tried, for far too long, to be that perfect Great Gardens warrior. To believe what he would believe, about you and Estrid and the aliens. I apologize.»
«You knew him?» Mertil said, reverent.
«A little. We barbarians at the academy had to herd together.» Mertil flinched at the ugly word. «He was so steady in the face of ridicule, he—inspired us.»
«He does that,» Mertil said wretchedly. His ears flicked. «And despite all my efforts, nothing I do at this Herdmoot will save him. The Yeerks who have him are not willing to negotiate.»
«After,» I said, «if you need help from one such as me to rescue him… you have my blade.»
«You think too far ahead, Gonrod,» Mertil said, blinking rapidly again. «We must survive this Herdmoot first. Go speak to Cassie about the opening to the ritual you suggested. You’re right. Your impression of me is good enough.»
Peter Chen and Mirazai
30 hours after the destruction of the groundside Kandrona generator
«1 hour before the Herdmoot
“Why isn’t it working,” Mirazai fretted. “The generators are live—we gutted that damn communications array from the Pool Ship—we have the right frequency from Ax’s parents—”
Marco, who was pacing around drinking army coffee from a huge thermos, passed by me and said, “You sure? Yeerks do numbers a little different from Andalites.” He hollered, “Mertil!” and the Andalite trotted over, his eyes rimmed with blue blood. “Check Dad’s work, will you?”
Mertil looked ready to kick Marco, but he knelt next to me in the grass and adjusted the frequency of the communications array. At first, there was only static, and then—
«This is Brethil-Tirehar-Attamil with Interstellar Correspondents.»
I startled and knocked over Mirazai’s tank, which fortunately was closed. “Can you hear me?!”
«Sorry, my translation implant doesn’t have enough data to understand you.»
«Mertil-Iscar-Elmand speaking. Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen told you to expect me.»
«Oh! Yes! Hello! Was that a human speaking just now?»
«Yes,» Mertil said impatiently. Privately, he told me and Marco: «We need to test whether the cameras can transmit properly, but I cannot be seen as I am.»
Marco put down his thermos. His arms prickled with fur. “I got it.” Mertil left the scene. I watched Diamanta disappear—always so creepy—and a gorilla crouched beside me. «Hello? ET phoning the Andalites.»
«Who are you?» the journalist asked.
Marco’s gorilla face grinned. «I’m Marco López Chen and Diamanta. I’m an Animorph,» he said with relish.
«You—you’re one of the humans who received Aximili’s Kindness! May I have an interview?»
«You bet. Let’s start with that Aximili’s Kindness thing—who told you that? I can give you the real story.»
“Marco,” I hissed. “Andalite High Command is coming! We need to test the cameras for the broadcast!”
«Fine, let’s take a rain check. We have holo-cameras here—my dad’s turning them on—can you see?»
«Yes! You really are humans!» Marco rolled his eyes, but didn’t correct her. «That grass is an interesting color, but could use maintenance.»
«Yeah, we’ll get right on that. Can you blast this on all your channels or whatever?»
«A live broadcast from Earth,» Brethil said, awed. «Yes, yes. The resolution and lag are not ideal, but—stay with me, it will take about 14 cordof.»
«Fourteen of your Andalite cordof?» Marco said in public thought-speech.
“Ax is still on the ship, he can’t hear you,” Loren shouted at him from across the field.
“What will your people think of seeing this Herdmoot on Earth?” I said, and Marco passed it on for me.
«I cannot speak for all, and I cannot be certain,» Brethil said absentmindedly as she worked. «But Andalites are natural optimists, and only our warriors are trained to be otherwise. Most of us will be excited, and expect the best of you.»
«The best of us, huh?» Marco said. He sounded weary. I put my hand in his huge one, the opposite of when he was a baby. «Let’s hope we don’t disappoint you, then.»