the ocean

[instar]

Five pigeons, one with a beetle glued to her foot, fly to Seattle and find the aquarium and the orca tanks.

There is one with just one orca in it.

Five pigeons land on the glass edge of the tank.

Comments

[aeskhyne]

Trouble - decides not to poke him along. See if he gets there by himself, first.

[morphbox]

<Well,> Ax says. <I sleep for about - I don't know your time system.>

<Elfangor said the limit on morph time was two hours, does that help?>

<Then when I'm adjusted for Earth's daylight cycle it will be about six hours a night, although in the long term I would do better with occasional midday naps because the Earth day is longer than I am used to. The claustrophobia is - bad but not unendurable. I will be able to tolerate any space with enough room for me to stand up and turn around if it's the only safe way for me to get sleep and demorph.>

<Okay. And?>

<...If I go back down in my sea creature morph - yours are too large to go through the airlock - I can collect two shredders, have a small chance of removing intact the thoughtspeak amplifier I used to call for help, and could collect a personal computer left in the Dome that doesn't belong to me that I might eventually be able to hack into, as its owner may be presumed dead, though I don't know what I'd do with it besides play pilot simulators, here. I don't specifically require any of the plants. I should be compatible with local flora.>

<A shredder is...?>

<A handheld beam weapon. It is intended for hands with the Andalite number of fingers, but it would be easier for a human to handle than a Dracon beam meant for a Hork-Bajir hand.>

[aeskhyne]

<Yeah,> says Trouble, <Aspret mentioned 'em.>

[morphbox]

<Aspret?> asks Ax, faltering slightly in his flight.

[aeskhyne]

<I had a Yeerk for a few days. I was too much for her to handle,> says Trouble. <She dumped a bunch of useful memories on me, trapped herself in a bird morph, and flew off. There was some more complicated shit, but that's the basics.>

[morphbox]

<Bird morph?> exclaims Ax. <A Yeerk with the power to morph?>

<Not any more,> says Bella. <Trapped. Stayed two hours and then some.>

<But - but ->

<Is there some accepted Andalite protocol for dealing with live, helpless Yeerk prisoners? I had her in a bowl of water,> says Bella. <I would have killed her if I believed she'd be dangerous, but she made a convincing case for wanting to fly away and never bother anyone again.>

<I - that's - but ->

[aeskhyne]

<And, you know, she was in my head,> says Trouble. <You get to know a person pretty well that way. She's all right. Her own side played enough nasty tricks on her that she was pretty well fed up with them - I don't think she would've gone back even if she'd thought she was going to live through it, as long as there was another way to go.>

[morphbox]

Ax is silent. (Well, actually, he makes a seagully noise, but he thoughtspeaks no words.)

<Ax,> says Bella, <I don't know what your personal history or the history of Andalites in general has been or where this anti-tech-sharing sentiment comes from, and even if I did, I wouldn't feel particularly attached to abide by comparable guidelines of anti-Yeerk warfare. I am absolutely, one hundred percent against letting them go on infesting people of any species, or for that matter disintegrate fleeing hosts or whatever other nefarious things they've been getting up to - but I do not go in for gratuitous slaughter of harmless prisoners because they belong to a species that has earned a bad name. Not when I have an alternative. The Andalite reluctance to share tech doesn't apply to me, especially when it let me turn a parasitic slug who was going to starve or otherwise die into a duck. Are we going to have a problem? Do you want to reconsider placing yourself under my command and negotiate as an independent agent or something?>

There is a long pause, and then Ax says, <No, Princess Bella.>

[aeskhyne]

Helpfully, Trouble interjects, <I'm pretty sure I could guess who's the last people Andalites shared technology with.>

[morphbox]

<Wait,> Bella says, <the Yeerks? But they don't have morphing tech.>

<Of course they don't,> says Ax indignantly.

<Was it invented recently?>

<...Not that recently. No.>

<Someone met a race of friendly brain parasites, who - they have to have hosts on their home planet, right, there's no other way you get brain parasites like that, is there?>

<...The Gedds, yes,> supplies Ax.

<Someone meets a race of friendly brain parasites who prefer to spend most of their time controlling not-brain-parasite-shaped bodies. And decides to be nice to them. And gives them beam weapons and space travel and not morph tech and a few of those six-winged birds or something.>

Ax is silent again.

[aeskhyne]

<I didn't get many details,> says Trouble. <Could be the people who had the morphing tech weren't friends with the Yeerks and the people who were friends with the Yeerks didn't have the morphing tech. But I do know almost all Yeerk technology is built on Andalite stuff, with some tweaks here and there. Aspret knew that, but she didn't guess why - it was just background info to her; she's too young to have seen it happen. But I mean, where else would they have gotten it that would leave you guys with a rule about handing out technology to strange species? It just fits.>

[morphbox]

<I will point out that it is a very good thing that the Yeerks do not have morph technology,> says Ax. <The abomination is more than bad enough.>

<Sure,> says Bella. <At this point I wouldn't like to trust the Yeerks with anything more complicated than a paperclip. I just can't figure out the mindset behind 'here, have spaceships and guns, but no turning into animals; if you want eyes and hands you have to steal them'.>

<The ships and weapons were stolen,> says Ax stiffly, <from one who had been merely educating the Yeerks about the wider universe.>

<That makes more sense,> says Bella.

[aeskhyne]

<Man, eyes and hands,> sighs Trouble. <Aspret still got excited about those every time. Well - almost.>

[morphbox]

<I hope,> begins Ax, and then he stops.

<What d'you hope?> asks Andi.

<...>

<Seconding that question. You may speak freely outside of crisis situations where distraction is dangerous,> Bella tells Ax, <with me, I don't know what the rules were in your previous outfit.>

<Ah. I hope this... sympathy for the Yeerks won't... It appears that...>

<I am willing to kill Yeerks. We starved Charlie's out. I'm even willing to kill hosts if it comes down to it, the innocent-person-shield is a tactic that cannot be allowed to work, although I'd rather find ways around the need - maybe you know of good ways to sabotage Kandronas or poison pools? You don't know what I had to do to chase Aspret out of Trouble. I didn't have the luxury of starving her.>

[aeskhyne]

<Yeah,> Trouble chimes in, <I mean, I felt sorry for Aspret 'cause she was having such a rough time, doesn't mean I wouldn't have killed her if she'd wanted to sell us out after all.>

[morphbox]

<..."Chase" her out of...?>

<She was acting pretty out of it because Trouble's brain isn't a comfy place for unwelcome guests,> says Bella, <so I had a chance to surprise her, and once she was down it got more unpleasant from there. It involved a lot of blunt force trauma. She decided not to hang around.>

<Oh.>

[aeskhyne]

<I didn't mind,> Trouble says brightly.

[morphbox]

<Trouble is the one who goes to acquire anything predatory we all want to collect,> Bella adds conversationally, <in case it's not friendly. Since he doesn't mind if a whale bites his leg or whatever.>

<...I see,> says Ax.

[hold_infinity]

<Orcas aren't technically whales,> says Robin. <They're more closely related to dolphins.>

[morphbox]

<There are so many species on this planet,> marvels Ax. <How many kinds of birds do you have?>

<...how many kinds of - what, how many kinds of birds do you have?>

<Three,> says Ax.

<...More than that. We have more than that by several orders of magnitude.>

[aeskhyne]

<Yeah,> says Trouble. <Aspret noticed that too. Earth is way off the charts on biodiversity.>

[morphbox]

<I would,> says Ax, <prefer not to be compared to any Yeerk.>

<She's a duck now,> says Andi unhelpfully.

[aeskhyne]

<It's my head she crawled into,> Trouble reminds him. <I'll talk about her how I want.>

[morphbox]

<Sounded to me like he was complaining about talking about him,> Andi says. <With the 'too'.>

[aeskhyne]

<You know what,> says Trouble, <skip it.>

He speeds up. Pigeons are not that much faster than seagulls on the whole, but this pigeon in particular is a racer, and he's been flying slow so as not to lose the entourage.