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

[morphbox]

<The shredders are about two and a half pounds each,> Ax estimates after a moment, <the thoughtspeak amplifier might be as many as ten but I don't know how much of what it's attached to is part of the device, and the personal computer is about a pound.>

[instar]

"So kind of hard to carry in bird forms, at least ones we have. We could make another Seattle trip to acquire everything in the zoo, or make a few trips with a bag we can share the load of, or we could get the stuff, hide it on the shore, and get Renée to drive us there and back and smuggle it away that way."

[palmofyourhand]

"I vote zoo," says Ethan.

[hold_infinity]

"Me too," says Robin.

[pandion]

"Only the big animals are in the open-air cages. How are we going to get, like, birds - morph bugs and go in through the wire and demorph there?"

[instar]

"Yes. Which means it'll be kind of a long night and we won't be able to grab literally everything we see, but we should be able to get in and out of everything in bug shapes."

[hold_infinity]

"Sounds good to me," says Robin.

[aeskhyne]

"Definitely," says Trouble.

[instar]

"Pity about the lack of computer, but we should be able to swipe park maps or something and get shopping lists of sorts when we arrive at the zoo, and I do know roughly where it is."

[aeskhyne]

"We found the orcas just fine!"

[instar]

"Orcas are hard to miss. I might need a map to tell me where to find an owl."

[aeskhyne]

"True," says Trouble. "All right, we'll find maps."

[instar]

"Trouble, since you're the limiting factor on things that bite - how many times do you think you can morph in one night?"

[pandion]

"You rhymed!"

[instar]

"A coincidence."

[aeskhyne]

"Plenty," he says. "Getting a lot of practice helps with that, it turns out. Morphing's easier than it used to be. I don't have hard numbers, but if I got fucked up and had to morph, like - ten times, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem. As long as they weren't all in the same five minutes."

[morphbox]

<Humans must have ludicrous endurance,> says Ax. <A professional estreen could work for years without having that much potential to morph repeatedly in a short time.>

[pandion]

"You can be a professional estreen?"

[morphbox]

<Morph-dancers. Yes.>

[aeskhyne]

"Cool," says Trouble.

[pandion]

"I know what I wanna be when I grow up!"

[aeskhyne]

He giggles.

[pandion]

"Ooh, Dad, I should show you some of the cute things I can do if I stop partway through the right things. If I go part butterfly I can be a tiny fairy, and if I do just the ears on the way to an Andalite morph -"

[morphbox]

<I beg your pardon?>

[instar]

"Elfangor scored a few hits on Visser Three. Me and Andi and Trouble all acquired from the blood, and Trouble also thought to ask Elfangor before the Visser landed, so he has two. Nobody has acquired you, although if you'd let at least Dad and Robin and Ethan, that would be convenient."