Chapter Text
My name is Cassie. I have strange hobbies.
<Your second finger needs to be held more parallel to your palm,> Ax explained, peering at the hand signal I was trying to make. Faced with my shorter, fewer, and differently jointed fingers, he had long given up trying to make my andalite speak eloquent, and was settling for decipherable.
I adjusted my finger as directed, and he gave a nod. Thank you, Aximili, I signed. The last syllable was really tricky to manage with my fingers. I felt like a two-year-old trying to write with a broken crayon. More than once I'd been tempted to just sign Ax, but that seemed a little impolite.
Come to think of it, we'd never actually asked if he minded being called Ax. We'd just stuck him with the nickname because the full version was difficult to learn to pronounce. I had no idea whether it was normal for andalites to give each other diminutive names, or even if it was offensive – and I couldn't remember him ever introducing himself to anybody as 'Ax'. He always said 'Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill', or, if he was being friendly, 'Aximili'.
Huh. Awkward. I stared at my own hands. It was probably too late to ask about the verbal name thing, but if he wanted me to sign his name as 'Aximili' then I was just going to have to put up with the strain.
“Ax, you call Jake Prince because that is the andalite equivalent of your commanding officer, yes?”
<That is correct.>
“Is there a title that I should be using for you when you're teaching me?”
Ax smiled. <A cultural teacher is an ethil. Like this.> He signed it for me. <It can be added to a name with this palm twist.> Again, he demonstrated, lifting his right wrist and palm a little and rotating them into a position that, to my untrained eye, made getting the finger positions for his name look a lot easier.
Thank you, ethil Aximili, I signed.
You learn quickly, he signed back. I tried to follow his words, but he signed quickly and used some signs I didn't know. I predicted ----- slow ----- people who don't ----- talk-hands.
“Humans have sign languages too,” I said, massaging my aching wrists. “I don't know any of them, but we're perfectly capable of talking with our hands.”
Ax's stalk eyes stretched high in surprise. <But you speak so often with mouth-sounds. Surely that it the natural way for you to communicate?>
“And you speak so often using thought-speak,” I said, raising my own eyebrows. “Most people who use sign languages do it in situations where it's hard to speak or hear – diving, disaster zones, deaf or mute people.”
<Ah, of course. Well, I am sure such human sign languages are of little use to you.> A cold tone had crept its way into his mental words. <But when the andalite fleet comes, you will be able to communicate more easily.>
I made an effort to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Of course, the glorious andalite fleet.” I really shouldn't be so dismissive – the 'glorious andalite fleet' were going to save our butts. We didn't really stand a chance without them. But Ax's smug andalite superiority could get irritating very fast.
<They will come when they can,> he said, apparently misunderstanding my sarcasm. <Perhaps by destroying the shark army for Leera, we have helped slow the yeerks there and thus hastened the fleet's ability to respond to the danger here. We simply need to 'hold the fort', as you humans say, and then Prince Jake and the rest of you can step down and let the fleet take care of it.>
“Ax, you do realise that our culture is different. Jake's not a – ”
<I know what he is!> Ax's tone was unexpectedly harsh, and I think I might have flinched. His tone became gentler. <I know what all of you are. None of you were trained for this. None of you asked for this. There is not a soldier on this planet to fight this threat except for...>
“Except for you,” I said quietly.
<And I am no warrior. I try to behave like one. But I am only half-trained. I am an aristh. And an aristh has a Prince to command him. The only situation in which he would not is if he were completely alone and lost.>
I reached up to touch Ax's shoulder. “Ax,” I said, “we might not have been trained for this, but we're here. And you're not alone.”
<I know.> Ax gave me a smile. I was getting the hang of andalite facial expressions (it's all in the eyestalks), and I think it was a very wry smile. <And I am grateful to have Prince Jake, and to have the rest of you as my cousins of the tail.>
“Hey there, Ax, Cassie,” Marco said, stomping his way into Ax's meadow. “You're here early, Cassie. Thought-speak range experiment?”
“Andalite language lesson,” I corrected, rubbing my wrists again. I generally had pretty good hand strength because I had to use them for a lot of different delicate tasks in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, but the sign language was about to give me RSI.
“Where do you even find the time for all this stuff?”
“Sorcery, probably. Also I don't spend all afternoon playing Doom.”
Marco rolled his eyes, looking for all the world like somebody who hadn't found and then lost his mother again about a month ago and who was probably responsible for killing her. “Feeling better, Ax?”
<I am fine, Marco, thank you,> Ax said somewhat stiffly.
“Fine?” I asked. “Were you sick?” We still had no idea what the environment would do to Ax. Visser Three (and the yeerks, hork-bajir, and taxxons, for that matter) seemed to show no concern whatsoever over the possibility of naturally occurring chemicals that humans had evolved amongst being toxic to organisms that evolved on entirely different planets, so it was possible that my concern was unfounded. But it seemed strange that he had been doing so well.
<I was fine. I am fine. It is nothing.> He flicked a stalk-eye dismissively.
“Are we all here, then?” Rachel asked. She and Jake were coming up behind Marco. Her eyes flicked to the sky. “Where's Tobias?”
<He will be here soon,> Ax said. <He is doing a security sweep.>
“Out in the woods?”
<Ax has been worried since the hork-bajir thing,> Tobias explained, landing on a branch right behind Rachel's head and making her jump. <He's worried they'll try the whole 'rooting out the andalites in the forest' thing again and bring back the taxxon trackers.>
<We are too close to human civilisation for such a plan to be practical,> Ax pointed out, <but if the yeerks get desperate enough, they may try it. I have placed proximity sensors in the area already, in case they come too close. But it is good to take every precaution, especially if we are meeting here.>
“Why are we meeting here?” Rachel asked.
Jake counted the reasons off his fingers. “Because Tom is at my place, your place is being painted, Marco's dad and Nora are having a stay-at-home dinner date, we meet at Cassie's barn way too often and it's starting to look weird, and certain people need to steer clear of the mall for awhile until other people forget what they look like.”
“'Certain people?'” Rachel shot Marco a suspicious glare. “What did you do?”
Marco had collapsed against a tree, laughing. He got enough breath to say, “For once, I did nothing, I swear.”
“Then what – ?”
<It was an easy miscalculation to make,> Ax said stiffly.
“'Miscalculation'?” I asked.
<I do not consider it an important enough event to relay,> he said primly.
“That's okay, Ax, I can relay it.” Marco seemed to have gotten enough breath to speak.
<Marco – >
“So I go to the mall to get that new Snoop Dogg CD, right? And – ”
“You? Pay for a CD?” Rachel fluttered her eyelashes in mock innocent surprise. “What, with money?”
“Yes. Shut up. I'm moving through the food court, thinking, why not snag a taco? After all, it's a nice day. Low noise level. Very short lines. Not all that crowded, except of course for the small crowd around the paramedics outside the Cinnabon.” He grinned.
“Oh, this cannot be good,” I moaned.
“My thoughts exactly. So I go up to the crowd and I ask someone what's going on. And she says – ”
“She?” Rachel asked. “You mean, you saw a good-looking girl who would normally never talk to you and you figured a medical emergency would be a good time to hit on her?”
“Exactly. I'm just circling around to my pitch, and I have an excellent pun about ambulances all lined up, when she cuts right across me and says that some kid went crazy and ate a whole tray of cinnamon buns. And there's this guy sitting there, looking really familiar, shaking with a blanket around his shoulders while the paramedics take his blood pressure and earnestly trying to explain to one of them, 'I was clearing tables! Tay-buls!'”
I did feel kind of bad for Ax. But that might just be the oxygen deprivation, because it was difficult to breathe while I was laughing so much. Rachel, too, was laughing, and slowly sinking to her knees. I leaned back against a tree.
“So anyway,” Jake said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “we're steering clear of the food court for awhile.”
<I had overestimated the capacity of the human stomach,> Ax said defensively. <I assumed it would take up a greater portion of the volume of the torso. There also appears to be some sort of chemical or hormonal reaction upon ingesting large quantities of food that I was unprepared for.>
“Sugar,” I said, calming down. “That's the sugar. You shouldn't eat so much of it at once.” I glanced at Marco. “What was your ambulance pun?”
“No!” Jake held up a hand. “Mission. We are here for a mission. Let's try to stay on track, people.”
“But it – ”
“Later! Tobias? What's the issue?”
<I spoke to Melissa Chapman yesterday.>
“Why?” Rachel asked.
<Because she had information for us. Should I have ignored her? Anyway, one of her agents – >
“'Agents',” Marco muttered. “Like they're some kind of cool underground spy network. At least we don't give ourselves airs.”
“They are an underground spy network,” Rachel pointed out.
I added, “Marco, you gave us a portmanteau name, call Rachel 'Xena, warrior princess', and compare us to the X-men on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, well... we have superpowers and they don't.”
<One of Melissa's agents has been trying to find out about a new yeerk plot that seems to be centered on the school,> Tobias powered on in the tone of one whose train of thought would not be derailed. <They're moving stuff around at night. The Star Defenders aren't sure what, but it's big, it's in crates, and they're being really secretive about it, to the point where they're not even letting Controllers who aren't involved near the stuff.>
“Why are they doing this aboveground?” Marco asked. “If they want to be secretive, don't they have an enormous underground cavern for that?”
<Yeah. That's what's weird.>
“They might be installing something on school grounds,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “Something too alien to just cover up as normal construction. We can't just let that go.”
<Whatever it is, the Star Defenders can't get in; there are no crowds, no unknown Controllers to mix with. They've been trying to get a peek during school hours but it's too high-risk. Melissa wants us to sneak in and relay what we find back to them so they can formulate a plan.>
“No,” Rachel said.
Marco cocked an eyebrow. “What, no 'let's do it'? You're going soft, Rachel.”
She shook her head. “Not the Star Defenders. They can't heal, they can't shapeshift. This is way too dangerous for them.”
“If we don't help,” I pointed out, “they'll go ahead and do it themselves. That's way more dangerous.”
Rachel shot me a glare. “Do you enjoy backing people into impossible moral corners to make them do what you want, Cassie, or is it just habit?”
“Rachel,” Jake growled warningly. Rachel raised a challenging eyebrow at him and stepped forward.
“Whoah, Xena,” Marco said, stepping between them. “Wrong place, wrong time. We need a pit of mud. And bikinis. And Jake should be a girl.”
“You're such a pig, Marco.”
“Does that mean I can get in the mud with you?”
“Whether we want to encourage the Star Defenders or not, we have to check this out,” Jake said. “Maybe we need to take this mission on ourselves. Step one is still the same.”
“If we take the mission on ourselves, that'll discourage them from coming to us next time they need help,” I pointed out. “So next time – ”
“Is this the 'my kids can drink but only in the house' line?” Rachel asked. “You're pulling that line on us?”
<How about,> Tobias suggested, <we check out the school thing and then start talking about whether it's too risky or not after we know what's actually going on?>
Rachel and I both nodded, reluctantly.
“Alright,” Jake said, “so we break into the school. Ideas?”
<We can simply morph tiny creatures,> Ax pointed out. <We have done so before. Unless they are expecting us, they will probably not have large supplies of poison on hand.>
“We can't do insects,” Rachel said, “now that we've got these brain chips from the... you know.”
“From the underwater base, which we collapsed on top of Vissers One and Three,” Marco finished. “You can say the whole sentence.”
There was an awkward pause. Jake cleared his throat.
“So,” he said. “Not insects.”
“Probably not shrews and lizards either,” I said, wrinkling my face up in thought. “Tobias said these chips were about the size of a quarter. They don't seem to be doing any harm in his head, but I wouldn't want to go smaller.”
“Owls?” Rachel shrugged.
<Good for outdoor surveillance, but we still might need something for inside,> Tobias said.
“Can't pretend to be Controllers, can't go too small to be noticeable,” Marco sighed. “Hey Cassie, there isn't some kind of giant chameleon that you happen to have in your barn, is there?”
“Contrary to popular belief, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center does not function solely as a source of DNA for shapeshifting guerilla warriors,” I said. “And chameleons don't have nearly as good camoflage as the cartoons would have you believe. Now, cuttlefish, on the other hand...”
“The last time we infiltrated the school, the Star Defenders took us up into the roof,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “They have secret passages up there.”
“They're clearly not enough, or they wouldn't have contacted us,” Marco said.
“Not enough for humans, maybe. But plenty of animals live in roofs, and they can probably move about up there more. Some of them have to have heads big enough for us.”
“Squirrels,” I said. “Opossums, maybe. I mean, even housecats might work. I have a squirrel morph already, and there's usually one or two in the Center.” I winced at Marco's smirk, but he didn't say anything.
“Right,” Jake said. “Let's go get some squirrel morphs.”
“Hey Tobias, don't eat anyone, okay?” Marco called over his shoulder as we traipsed out into the trees.
<Marco, I'm going to tell you what dozens of girls have already told you – I'd rather die than put my mouth on you.>
“Well, given how dangerous these things always turn out, that's not as encouraging as it should be,” Marco muttered.