the alien

[instar]

There are no more five-person meetings at the Swan household. They're a circle: Bella-Andi-Robin-Ethan-Trouble-Bella again. They meet in twos, threes, pass around information, get it all down in Bella's cipher in Bella's notebooks. They have a list of members of the Sharing, mostly procured by Ethan and to a lesser extent Trouble, but no safe way to learn if these people's behavior has changed; they have seen no more aliens, observed no more disintegrations, caught no one ducking into anything that is an alien hideout.

The twins try to behave normally with their father or his pod person, whichever the person who calls them is, for a value of "normally" that involves adamantly continuing to want nothing to do with the Sharing.

And sometimes crying and refusing to tell Renée what's wrong.

School proceeds. No one's grades see more than a minor downturn as a result of all the alien business.

Andi and Robin play music. Andi's getting pretty good on the drums, although her teacher moves away and she has to hunt up another one, who she sticks with for four lessons before deciding to go self-taught.

Bella tightens up her cipher. It began as a letter substitution and since then has evolved to include plenty of personal shorthand - she turns the ratio of shorthand to straightforward letters up as far as she can and still read the thing herself. She abbreviates, she leaves out spaces, she names things in roundabout ways, she refers to things many notebooks ago that she can find easily that anyone else could spend hours hunting for, if she has to record names she finds ways to describe the spelling without ever placing all of the characters in sequence. Maybe the aliens have super-cryptanalysis and super-OCR and can eat her notebooks in one bite and know everything they know; but maybe not, and maybe if she's careful enough she'll look like she's writing her paranoid diary and not like she's taking notes on the quiet invasion.

Trouble comes over a lot. He stays over a lot. Renée has a quiet conversation about him with Bella, in which Bella is vague, pretends ignorance, suggests that maybe he just likes it here, maybe his folks are allergic to gluten and won't eat his baked goods? Renée leaves it alone.

May begins.

Comments

[morphbox]

When Trouble doesn't run, the Andalite says:

<...Your mother... Tell me about your family, Trouble.>

[aeskhyne]

"Well, she believes in aliens," he says, grinning.

[morphbox]

The Andalite closes his eyes.

<Hide,> he says again. <They are coming.>

[aeskhyne]

"Can I—" says Trouble, putting his hand over the Andalite's hand on his face.

[morphbox]

<Yes. If you can do it quickly.>

[aeskhyne]

He nods.

He concentrates, thinking about - fur under his fingers and having no mouth (how do they eat?) and those watchful eyes and that amazing tail. Imagining himself as the Andalite.

Imagining himself as other people has always been easy.

[morphbox]

The Andalite droops, a little, sedated or tired or maybe just drained from being half-incinerated.

<Run. They mustn't catch you.>

[aeskhyne]

"Okay," Trouble whispers, his volume driven low by the softness of the mental voice.

Impulsively, he kisses the palm of the alien's hand.

Then he runs.

[morphbox]

The Andalite drops his hands. He waits.

The lights overhead descend.

[pythbox]

A pair of blazingly red spotlights focus on the Andalite. The ships that produce them are mere vague silhouettes, dark against the black of the sky.

The third ship is darker still.

It descends slowly, directly over the stack of concrete pipe sections where Trouble tried to take cover earlier. Just when it looks like it's about to hit the topmost pipe in the stack, there is a flash and a kind of screamy whoosh—TSEEEWWW—and the whole stack vaporizes. As it settles to the ground, its shape is finally visible, silhouetted against the pale gravel: a main shaft like an axe handle and two sweeping fixed wings like blades. Near the forward end, where the handle bulges into a triangular spearpoint, a door opens.

[morphbox]

The Andalite doesn't move. Maybe he can't.

<If you are still in range of my voice,> he tells the three remaining teenagers - Robin and Ethan are long gone - <be silent. Hork-Bajir have bad night vision but excellent hearing.>

[pythbox]

A group of Hork-Bajir-Controllers exit the ship first, squinting into the darkness.

Next, a pair of huge wormy creatures, twelve-foot-long pale grubs with dozens of short spiky legs set in a row along each side. The forward third of each tubelike body arches off the ground, bringing to bear two rows of smaller limbs tipped with more manipulatory claws, and terminates in a huge round mouth with four blobby red eyes set around the outside and hundreds of sharp little teeth ringing the interior.

The Hork-Bajir spread out, taking up guard positions around the empty area. But none of them seems able to see anything outside the circle of illumination provided by those blood-red spotlights.

[morphbox]

<You have seen the Hork-Bajir. They are the Yeerks' shock troops. The Taxxons are the long creatures with the numerous legs; they are almost exclusively voluntary Controllers, motivated by promises of food. Always hungry, often cannibals. Excellent reflexes.>

[pythbox]

Last of all, an Andalite steps out of the ship.

[morphbox]

<That is the only Andalite who has ever been taken alive by the Yeerks. The only Andalite-Controller. Visser Three.>

[pythbox]

Visser Three paces slowly toward the injured Andalite, arms at his sides, tail relaxed, all four eyes focused on his fallen enemy.

<Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, if I am not mistaken. An honour to meet you,> he says mockingly. His silent voice is very distinct from the Andalite's. There is no doubt as to who is speaking.

[morphbox]

<He cannot hear me. I am directing my thoughts privately to you,> the dying Andalite - apparently, Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul - says. <He is broadcasting his for all to hear. This is a great victory for him.>

He doesn't answer Visser Three.

[pythbox]

<Your Dome ship has been destroyed, Prince Elfangor,> the Visser continues. <I watched it burn as it fell into the atmosphere of this world.>

[morphbox]

<There will be others,> Elfangor replies.

[pythbox]

<They will be too late,> Visser Three says dismissively. <By the time they arrive, this world will be mine. My personal gift to the Council of Thirteen. The Yeerk Empire's greatest conquest. And then I'll be Visser One.>

[morphbox]

Elfangor says, <Why them? Why these humans, when you already have your Hork-Bajir, your Taxxons, your original Gedd hosts...?>

The question doesn't sound so much like he's curious as that he has chosen a question-shaped way to voice sorrow.

[pythbox]

<Humans are many,> says Visser Three, stalking closer to Elfangor. <Many and weak. Billions of bodies, waiting in helpless ignorance for the Yeerks who will control them. We'll have to build a thousand new Yeerk pools just to infest them all. With this many hosts, we can spread throughout the universe. Unstoppable! Glorious!>

[morphbox]

Elfangor stands up. Slowly, with difficulty, but he stands.

[pythbox]

<I promise you this, Elfangor,> the Visser continues silkily. <When we have this planet, when we move against your homeworld with our fresh army of human-Controllers, I will personally hunt down your family. I will personally oversee the placement of my most faithful lieutenants in their heads. And I will require detailed reports on how their minds scream when they try and fail to resist.>

[morphbox]

Elfangor's tail flashes forward. The motion is almost too swift to see, but it's illuminated with a sudden light-flash from the tail of his ship, which fires at one of the small Yeerk fighters and obliterates it.