Animorphs Book 55: The Difference

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 1 (Ax)

My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. I suspect that most who read this will have heard of me, so I need not elaborate upon my past circumstances. I have become quite well-known, among both Andalites and humans, since the end of the great Yeerk war. If you have not heard of me, suffice it to say that I am an Andalite, but for three years I fought alongside the famous group of human children known as the Animorphs.

But that was long ago. Now I was back among my own people. On a mission to find and destroy the Blade Ship, a deadly threat to any peaceful world. A vessel that carried the last remnants of the Yeerk Empire.

This mission had gone terribly wrong when my ship, the Intrepid, had happened upon a strange alien craft. The craft, which we had assumed to be dead, had suddenly fired upon my ship. I was not aboard my ship when this happened. I, and a handful of my crew, had already boarded the alien craft. We were looking for a small amount of earth DNA, which turned out to be a few strands of fur. Polar bear.

The fur had been the bait in a trap. And, like a fool, I'd walked right into it.

I watched through a small window as the Intrepid pulled away, leaving me and what remained of my crew stranded. Abandoned aboard a strange, alien, and very hostile craft. I knew that the departing Intrepid took with it my best chance for survival. Perhaps my only chance.

So much the better. I now had nothing to lose. I would die with honor, alongside my fellow warriors. The best end I could have wished for.

But, regardless of my dismal chances of survival, I was not dead yet.

<Follow me!> I yelled to the rest of my boarding crew, a good force of more than twenty Andalites. I trotted down a hallway, towards the center of the ship. <The bridge will be at the center!> I continued as I ran, <If we encounter no one else on this ship, we should be able to override the autopilot. And if it turns out that someone is on board with us, then we shall override them!>

As the Intrepid began to accelerate away, I sent a private message to Menderash. <Jake! Menderash, find Jake, tell him what's happened!> I yelled at the top of my voice, hoping against hope that Menderash would hear at least the word Jake. It was strange. Even now, even after having been among my fellow Andalites for the past three years, it was a human that I trusted more than any Andalite to come to my aid. If I died, I trusted Jake to take up my mission where I had left off. And if, by some miniscule chance, I survived this mission, then I would be grateful to serve under my former prince once more.

I led my crew of Andalites deeper and deeper into the ship. I could feel the ship's acceleration in the floor beneath my hooves, but I did not have time to worry about whatever battle might be going on in space around the alien ship I was in. No time to worry, only time to find a way to join the battle ourselves.

Finally, after having run an exhausting distance, a span of seemingly endless corridor at least the length of a Dome Ship, we reached the bridge. As I predicted, it was at the heart of the alien ship's gigantic star-burst shape.

But there was no one there. It appeared that the ship had powered up and fired upon the Intrepid, all on its own. Was it possible that such a behemoth of a ship could be controlled by remote?

No time to worry about that now. I jumped to the nearest station, and ordered my technicians to do the same. As I worked to make sense of the unfamiliar interface, the panel began to glow. Before long, the entire bridge was glowing with intense, searing light.

A deep, mind-filling voice greeted me. The voice somehow went beyond spoken speech. Beyond thought-speak.

"Hello, little Andalites," it said tauntingly. Mockingly. "Brave, valiant, noble little Andalites. Weaklings. Bravery is not enough anymore. Courage means nothing for the weak. Power is all. I am all. I am the One. You, pitiful creatures, you are nothing."

The light was even brighter now. So bright that closing my eyes made no difference. I saw nothing but blazing, searing white.

I could see only one thing through the white inferno. A shifting, perpetually changing face. I saw it as much with my mind as with my eyes.

"Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. War-hero. Prince. The Great Aximili. You will make a worthy hostage. Yes, you I will take. The rest of you will die."

As the creature spoke, I began to feel my own body dissolve. My arms, my legs, my body, began to feel vaporous and indistinct, as if I were a ghost. As if the light were tearing my very atoms apart, but without pain. I cannot truly describe it, but I could sense myself fading. My mind, too, was growing weak. I tried to lash out with my tail at this hideous creature, but I already knew that I barely even had a tail left to strike with. And I didn't even know where to aim. How can you strike out at light?

The One only laughed at my efforts. "Do not embarrass yourself with your pitiful resistance," it said. "You are becoming a part of me. There is nothing you can do to stop it."

<Vile abomination!> I shouted with what was left of my mind. My thought-speak was barely a whisper.

The One merely laughed again. "You ought to be honored, Andalite. There are not many creatures left in this galaxy that are even worth taking. I consider you worthy, Aximili. Although I doubt you will consider that to be any consolation."

That was the last thing I heard as my mind and body vanished into the world-consuming light.

-----------------

It might take me a while, but I plan to eventually repost all of my fanfics.  Bear with me, and consider yourselves lucky I think you all are awesome enough to be worth the effort.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 2 (Ax)

It took me a very long time to rationalize the strange place where I found myself. If it was truly a 'place' at all. My mind was still faded and faint, but, if I focused with all my will, I could stay conscious. Stay focused. But it was very difficult. My thoughts were those of a dream.

I was drifting through a hazy dream scape. Nothing was distinct. My surroundings somehow felt grey, but when I tried to focus on what color things actually were, the colors would shift and change.

I could sense other people here with me, but I saw no one. Although, in this indistinct, hallucinatory place, it was hard to be sure if I actually saw anything at all. Was I blind? Impossible to say. Was it all just a trick of my own imagination? I did not know.

I might have been drifting through this dreary prison for a minute or a millennium. It felt like years, at least, but time held little meaning here. I had nothing against which to measure time, not even so much as the beat of my hearts or sensation on my skin. Even my innate, Andalite sense of time was disrupted.

After what felt like an eternity, having to continually focus my mind to keep myself from fading into the dream, I began to realize I could see outside my prison. There were images, sounds in the haze. But they came and went, flickered in and out.

"Save your tricks for this Yeerk fool," I finally managed to hear. The sound faded out. I strained to listen. Then I saw, through the haze, the bridge of a ship. The Blade Ship? Couldn't be sure. Then I heard, or thought I heard, the One's terrible voice.

"Jake the Yeerk-killer," it mocked.

Jake! He was here. My prince was here to rescue me.

My sudden surge of anxiety brought reality into sharp focus for the first time in months. No, no, no! He couldn't be here! I had to find a way to make him turn back! I had called him before I had known about the One. I would never have asked his help if I had known the danger.

I had led my prince into a trap. Just as I had done for the crew of the Intrepid.

<Prince Jake! Turn back!> I tried to shout. <Do not let the One take you as well!> But I knew that he couldn't hear me. Knew that my thought-speak could not reach outside the confines of the One's dreamlike prison for me.

<GET AWAY!> I cried, pouring every ounce of energy I had into those two words. But my voice didn't even reach beyond my own body.

"Stupid Andalite," the One sneered at me, in a voice only I could hear. "You know perfectly well he can't hear you. Ha HA! He's about to kill himself trying in vain to kill me! Oh, this is a glorious day!"

<Why are you doing this? Who are you? What are you?> I demanded of the One. <You capture me and hold me hostage, even though you claim to be so much more powerful than me. And now you gloat triumphantly over the death of a mere human. What are you?>

I did not truly expect the One to answer my questions. I expected it to tell me not to concern myself with things that weren't my business. At the very least, I expected it to give me a short, cryptic answer.

I did not expect that I would suddenly see, as though a revelation had in a dream, all that the One was.

In the blink of an eye, I saw his story.

The One had surprisingly humble beginnings. It had begun as a super-weapon of the Kelbrid race, used to defend their borders. The One was, at that point, nothing more than a concentration of radiation and energy that had been given intelligence through advanced Kelbrid technology. The Kelbrid programmed it to intimidate their enemies, to take hostages, and, when it would be a waste of effort to take hostages, to kill.

But their weapon had evolved over the years. It began to absorb the intelligence, the thoughts, the emotions of those it captured. Later, it learned to assimilate their abilities and appearances, as well. The One eventually evolved beyond anything the Kelbrid could control. Its knowledge and power went far beyond anything the Kelbrid had originally given it. Far beyond anything they could have predicted.

Of course, the One rebelled against the Kelbrid. As does almost any slave who discovers itself more powerful than its master. Many Kelbrid died in their efforts to stop the One, but it could not be killed by any conventional means. It won its freedom by force, through cruelty and bloodshed. And so, with only its programmed instincts to intimidate, capture, and kill to guide it, the One attempted to find its own way in the universe.

Much more recently, the One had allied itself with the Yeerks. It had been searching, for years, in near-desperation, for a cause, a driving purpose to commit itself to. A reason for its own existence. Something besides the mindless killing and assimilating that was all it knew how to do. The Yeerks provided the cause. The great Yeerk Empire was the One's new purpose, and it would willingly cooperate with the Yeerks for such a worthy goal as conquest and enslavement. In exchange, the Yeerks worshiped the One. The One had gone from being the slave to the master.

I blinked, my weakened mind overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information.

It was a sad creature. A creature without a true place, without a purpose. A tool of the Kelbrid that had outgrown its use. Suddenly, and without quite realizing it, I pitied it.

The One read my emotions even before I did. "I did not ask for your pity, inferior. You asked what I am, and I gave you an answer. Now be quiet, Andalite, and do not pass judgment on what you do not know."

The One left me alone after that.

For a while, I drifted in and out of consciousness. I do not know how long.

I was brought back to what passed for reality by a startlingly loud sound.

TSEEEEEWW.

A flash of red.

TSEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW.

Not just a flash this time. A sustained glow of red light. It seemed to burn brighter and brighter, as if it were burning through the walls of my incorporeal prison.

Suddenly, without warning, everything around me was chaos! Pieces of my hazy dream world became suddenly sharp and clear, while other parts seemed to turn themselves inside out. Everything around me was shifting and warping and twisting and melting and shattering and reforming. I could not even begin to make sense of it all. Light began to pour in. Bright, blinding, white light.

"Insolent humans!" the One raged at an unseen foe. "You have won, this time, but you have achieved nothing beyond keeping your own lives. You have not defeated me."

With that, the blinding white light faded. I was no longer a ghost in a dream. I was an Andalite, my mind and body sharp and solid once more. I had finally awakened from the nightmare. I found myself surrounded by the beautifully sharp clarity of black space and bright stars.

<Ah!> I cried, surprised to feel the sudden pain in my chest, the first pain I had felt in a long time. I tried to gasp, only to find that no air came. I could not breathe!

Air! I gasped again for it, but my lungs collapsed in upon themselves with each attempt at a breath. I kicked my legs, instinctively trying to move myself back to the nearby ruins of the Blade Ship, which drifted, nearly destroyed, only a few feet away from me. But I knew it was futile.

<NO!> I shouted in frustration. I was finally freed from the One, only to find that I was about to die in the cold airless depths of space.

As my newly-restored mind began to fade yet again, this time from cold and asphyxiation, I thought I heard a voice. I was almost certain I imagined it.

<Ax!> the voice said.

It was Tobias's voice I heard, calling out to me, as the darkness took hold of my mind.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 3 (Jake)

"Ram the Blade Ship."

Tobias shot a fierce glare at me, but said nothing. He didn't need to. I got his meaning loud and clear. He didn't need to say that he didn't approve of my playing God with all of our lives.

But I didn't care what he thought. I was the one who took responsibility for making these decisions. Not him.

My name is Jake. You've heard of me. Jake the Yeerk-killer. Fearless Jake. Jake the thirteen-year-old general.

Of course, I'm twenty now. Things have changed so much since back when this war first started. I don't have to tell anyone who I am anymore, for one thing. I'm Jake, leader of the Animorphs. The rest is history, as the old cliche goes.

But a few things haven't changed. I'm still the one making the big decisions when someone needs to. Still putting my life and my friends' lives on the line, in the hope that the gamble will pay off in the end.

Menderash looked sideways at me. Waited for some confirmation that I was actually asking him to ram the Blade Ship, that I wasn't joking. That I wasn't insane.

I nodded, giving him my okay. No, I wasn't joking.

And I hoped I wasn't insane, either.

The Rachel hurtled forward. There was no feeling of acceleration, but it was tough to shake the feeling that there should have been one, as we hurtled at impossible speeds.

The One was still on our viewscreen. It looked distracted, like it was talking to somebody else. When it did see us speeding toward it, it only grinned. It wasn't afraid of us.

The distance between us and the Blade Ship closed at a startling speed. Then, at the last possible second, the Blade Ship swerved suddenly to the side. The Rachel blew past. A miss. But our ship could turn faster than the Blade Ship could. The Rachel turned, and fired on the Blade Ship from behind.

TSEEEEW.

The blast bounced harmlessly off of the Blade Ship's force fields.

"Menderash! Quick, try ramming it again! Before it turns!" I snapped.

We hurtled forward again, but the Blade Ship was turning around to face us. Closer, closer, we raced.

Again, the Blade Ship rolled to the side. This time, I heard a scraping sound as the Rachel's wingtip brushed against the Blade Ship's force field.

TSEEEEW.

As we blew past, the Blade Ship shot at us. A miss. We were moving too fast for them to get a lock on us.

"New plan. Fire continuously at them. We'll weaken their force field. But keep us moving, avoid their fire. Once their field is gone, we ram them again."

It was a desperate gamble. The Rachel was a wasp pitted against a hawk. We had the manuverability, but the only weapon we had was a stinger. If the hawk so much as touched us, we were dead.

Menderash's piloting skills were admirable, even by Andalite standards. He dived and dodged, feinted and turned, a whirling dervish that the Blade Ship couldn't hit. All the while, Dracon crossfire shot back and forth.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Marco said.

We kept it up for a while. And we landed a few good hits on the Blade Ship, all the while managing to avoid its shots.

"You are quite an annoyance, humans, but I grow tired of this game," the One said through the viewscreen. "Let's make things a little more interesting, shall we?"

As I watched, the entire Blade Ship began to glow with the One's light. The entire ship shifted from the darkest black to the brightest white. A brilliant star in the shape of a battle-ax.

A gigantic plume of white-hot energy suddenly shot out from the Blade Ship's bridge, like a liquid stream of blinding white light.

We swerved to the left, but it was as if the energy had anticipated our move. It turned even before we did, moving to cut us off.

"Reverse!" I yelled, but it was too late. Our forward momentum plowed us right into the blindingly white wall.

The walls of the Rachel began to glow from the contact. "Get us out of here!" I ordered Menderash. The Rachel shot backwards, out of the One's reach.

"It was draining our power," Menderash reported. "We have enough power left for either one more surge of the engines, or maybe two Dracon shots."

The radiant white Blade Ship turned to face us. It picked up speed, hurtling towards us. Knowing we were almost helpless.

"This ends now," the One said.

"Indeed it does," I answered. "Menderash. He wants a head-on collision, give him one."

Menderash turned the Rachel to face the Blade Ship. We hurtled forward.

The Blade Ship hurtled forward.

"I can't watch," Marco whimpered, covering his eyes.

The two ships sped closer, closer.

"Dracon beam! Now!" I yelled, right before we hit. "Divert any power this ship has left to the weapons!"

TSEEEEEW.

BOOOOM.

There was an earth-shattering crash that shuddered through both ships and knocked me off my feet. Metal smashed into metal. Steel twisted and deformed under the force of the collision. The two ships locked, meshed together by twisted steel.

The One's white light now nearly surrounded us. And that light was growing, stretching. It was trying to envelop the Rachel!

"Dracon this thing until it fries!" I ordered, getting to my feet.

"How? We have no power," Menderash said simply.

I looked around, thinking frantically. I needed a plan, fast.

The One's light grew brighter and brighter around us.

"That thing's made out of energy!" I cried suddenly, having a revelation. "Can you siphon off some of it for our Dracon?"

Menderash said nothing, but worked feverishly at the controls. The light was almost all around us, now. I could barely open my eyes against the glare.

TSEEEEEEEEEEWWW.

The Dracon beam pierced deep into the One's glaring white light. And kept going.

"Don't let up!" I shouted over the continuous noise of the laser.

At first, there appeared to be no effect. The Dracon's red light shone steadily, pumping its destructive energy right into the core of the One.

I could somehow see the One's face in the midst of all the glare. Shifting from one visage to another, faster and faster. Like a slide show on overdrive. The last face I saw was Ax's.

Then, there was a shattering wave that rippled across the blinding mass of light, breaking it up into millions of tiny pinpoints. The One's blinding sea of white broke apart into a beautiful nebula of tiny stars, which fell away from the Blade Ship and the Rachel like beads of water.

"Insolent humans! You have won, this time, but you have achieved nothing beyond keeping your own lives. You have not defeated me."

The points of light flickered and dimmed.

I don't know if it was my imagination, but, among the thousands of glittering pinpoints of white, I could have sworn I saw one that was blue.

[goom]

that was awesome. can't wait for more!

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 4 (Tobias)

The One was gone.

Ax was gone.

<Ax!> I screamed, refusing to believe that he couldn't hear me. That he might never hear me again.

He couldn't be gone. He just couldn't be. After all these years we spent fighting Yeerks together, it was inconceivable that he might be dead. Inconceivable! Impossible!

Especially now. Now that the war was long since over, now that I was finally just beginning to think I could be free from the pain of war and violence. The terrible knowledge of my own weakness. The weight of so much death on my shoulders.

Stupid of me to think I could ever be free from all that. To make believe that, now that the war was finally over, all the pain and despair and death would end.

Had I actually begun to think that I could ever find peace?

My name is Tobias.

Hawk. Human. I'm sure you already know the story. I'm sure you've heard the tragic tale about the boy who gave up his humanity in exchange for a set of wings. Who spent more than two hours as a red-tailed hawk and then was a hawk forever. Who made this terrible sacrifice so he could fight a war, fight for the freedom of the world and for the memory of his father. To keep fighting, never to accept the surrender that was to be human again.

Or maybe he'd never made a sacrifice. Maybe he wanted to be a hawk, wanted to run away from his human life, even if he could never quite admit it, even to himself. Maybe he never became human again, not simply so that he could stay in the fight, but because that had never been the life he wanted.

Nobody really knows for sure.

Neither do I. And I doubt I ever will.

All I knew was that I'd suddenly lost another one of the tenuous threads tying me to humanity. Someone who had not even been human. Yet, who had in some strange way been far more human than I was.

I felt a cold wave of fury at Jake. He had given the orders that had killed the only two people I had ever really cared about. First Rachel. Now Ax.

And his decision could still prove responsible for the death of the rest of us, before long.

SCREEEEEE!

A screech of metal against metal penetrated my thoughts. The groan of bending steel was accompanied by a whistle of wind, rising and rising until it was an overpowering hurricane.

WeeeooooOOOOSH!

The air was escaping from our wrecked ship!

The Blade Ship and the Rachel, their huge masses now rebounding from their catastrophic collision, were pulling away from each other. Pulling away from the crumpled, entangled mass they had become.

And in doing so, they would tear each other apart!

Jake instantly snapped into action. "Marco! Jeanne! Try to use the weapons to seal the Rachel's hull. Menderash and Santorelli, see what you can do to get some power to the engines and weapons. Tobias, come with me. We're finding the emergency air tanks," he yelled over the din of tearing metal, already having to gasp for air against the dwindling wind.

But Jake's orders were soon rendered useless. As the two ships powerlessly drifted apart, something must have snagged. The battle-ax end of the Blade Ship, the part that had remained undamaged by the collision, suddenly swung around. It seemed to move in slow motion, gracefully sweeping towards us until its blade-like wing buried itself into the Rachel's metal skin.

BOOM! SCREEEEEECH!

The familiar scream of twisting steel was accompanied by another hiss of escaping air and a crackle of electricity. Suddenly the artificial gravity was gone. With it, the last of our air.

I was floating, helpless, my lungs crying out for precious oxygen. I couldn't breathe! The air was being sucked out of my throat every time I tried to draw a breath. Air! I flapped my wings uselessly, panicking but going nowhere. There was nothing for my wings to push against. I could see a computer panel not more than a foot from my beak, but I could not reach it.

<Ax!> I screamed again. As if he could hear me. As if he could help us.

Already my vision was clouding over, the lack of oxygen and the paralyzing cold quickly sapping my strength. It was already too late to morph. It was already too late to do anything.

I looked out the window, past the struggling bodies of Jeanne and Santorelli, both screaming soundlessly in the vacuum, and thought I saw a glint of silver outside. A flicker of hope. Was it another ship? Would they save us?

Was it even really there, or was my dying mind just making up another pathetic false hope for me to hang on to? Trying to keep me safe from reality right up until the very moment I died?

No. It was gone. If it had even been there in the first place.

This was it, I realized. The end.

This realization filled me, not with fear, but with an unexpected sense of calm. There was nothing left to fight for. Nothing left to fight. No reason I had to go on being strong.
I could finally surrender to my own weakness. No one was left to judge me for it.

Sweet, sweet surrender.

I closed my eyes and peacefully waited for my life to end.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 5 (Marco)

I woke up on a cold, steel floor, immediately greeted by a throbbing headache. I tried to move, to get up from my uncomfortable position on the floor, only to discover that I had a broken rib. The injury sent a jolt of pain through my chest every time I breathed. Not fun.

But hey, at least I was alive, which was way better than what I had been expecting.

By the way, my name is Marco. I'm sure you've heard of me. But just in case you've been living under a rock for the past three years and four chapters, I can tell you that I'm the sexiest member of the Animorphs, the now-renowned team of animal-morphing superheroes. That's all I can tell you because . . . oh wait. Nevermind. We won that war. So I probably could tell you a lot more about me, but I won't. Gotta keep the tabloids guessing, you know? Just know that I can turn into animals, fight aliens, and unfailingly wind up in some of the most bizarre situations imaginable.

This seemed like it could be another one of those situations. I looked around, trying to turn my head with as little movement as possible, only to find myself in some sort of containment room. Like a jail cell, with solid steel walls all around. I saw Jake, Santorelli, and Jeanne in the room with me. Jake was sitting up and looking around, looking, like me, as if he had just been roused from unconsciousness. Santorelli and Jeanne were still out cold, but breathing. No sign of Tobias or Menderash.

I got up into a sitting position, managing to ignore the pain in my rib (I'd had worse, after all), and gave the room a more thorough check. But it was no use. Tobias and Menderash weren't here. Oh, God, could they be . . .

I looked at Jake, and he just shook his head and looked away, wearing that same worried expression I'd seen on his face so many times during the war. It's that look he has when he's just made a decision that might have gotten one of his teammates killed.

So I guess he didn't know if Tobias and Menderash were alive, either.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to find something else to worry about, to take my mind off of my missing comrades. I looked around, trying to see out of the tiny air holes in our solid steel cell, hoping to see if there was anything out there that I should be wary of. Not seeing anything terribly threatening (although not really seeing much at all), I decided to risk a morph to fix my broken rib and whatever other injuries I might have sustained. I quickly morphed gorilla, one of my favorite animal forms. I watched as black fur spread up my arms and down my legs. I felt the familiar rush as by shoulders bulked up into those of a body builder. My face bulged out into an ape's muzzle. My canine teeth grew. My exposed skin became tough as leather.

Once I was whole again, I demorphed. I was just watching the last of the black fur recede when Santorelli and Jeanne began to stir.

They were both morphing to repair their own injuries, Jeanne to eagle and Santorelli to wolf, when I heard a wonderfully familiar thought-speak voice.

<Ugh . . . what the? Where am I? What the heck happened? Hey, Marco, Jeanne, Menderash, can anybody hear me?> Tobias. Sounding grumpy. But he also sounded shaky. Like he was deeply upset about something.

Of course, we all knew to pretend that nothing was wrong. Anything we said to him would only make it worse. Tobias is like me in that way. He doesn't take pity well.

But, regardless of whatever personal problems he was going through, I was still unbelievably happy he was alive. We'd never exactly been close, but we'd fought side by side for years. You can't go through a war without feeling at least a little kinship for your comrades.

And besides, if he were gone, who would I make all my incredibly witty bird-jokes about?

The knowledge that Tobias was alive had already lifted my spirits considerably. But then, something far more miraculous happened.

<Tobias! Is that you? It is a surprise to hear your voice. Have you also been captured? And Prince Jake and Marco as well?>

Jake and I looked at each other, our eyes wide with shock and joy. We both said exactly the same thing at the same time.

"Ax!"

<Ax!> Tobias said, echoing our amazement and elation. <Oh my god, you're alive!>

<Yes, I am alive. I could hardly be expected to be communicating if I weren't.>

It was just about too good to be true. To be honest, I'd already discounted Ax as a goner. I mean, the the guy got eaten by a blinding blob of evil energy, then shot through with a Dracon beam. Not many people could live through that. I'd forgotten how tough us Animorphs are to kill.

Santorelli was still in his wolf morph. He'd apparently decided to stay in morph for the time being, probably with the intention of being able to talk to Ax and Tobias.

<Jake, Marco, and Jeanne are all here, and we're all fine. I haven't seen Menderash, though,> he said.

<Menderash is alright, aside from minor injuries. He is currently conversing with our captors,> Ax said.

"Santorelli, tell Ax to tell us what the heck is going on," Jake said. Santorelli relayed the message.

Ax told us everything, starting with his mission, and how he had been captured by the One. He elaborated on what he had learned about the One during his time in its captivity, speculating that <your Dracon cannon probably destabilized the One's energy flux temporarily>. Whatever that meant.

<And then, according to Menderash, who remained conscious throughout the collision, we were picked up by a small Kelbrid craft. He says that the Kelbrid haven't told him anything yet, but he noted that they seemed surprised to learn that he and I are Andalites,> Ax finished.

"Kelbrid? They're the ones who captured us?" I asked. Though of course Ax couldn't hear me. Stupid steel walls.

<Prince Aximili, did you mention to them that Kelbrid appear to be incapable of hearing thought-speak?> Menderash asked, apparently done with whatever negotiations he'd been doing.

<No, you did not mention that fact to me, Menderash,> Ax said. <That might help explain the hostilities between Kelbrid and Andalites,> he added thoughtfully.

<Well, that's just wonderful. This day just gets better and better, doesn't it?> Tobias grumbled, obviously miffed at having his primary mode of communication rendered useless.

Incidentally, almost as soon as he finished speaking, our day took another turn for the worse.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 6 (Marco)

As all of us watched, one of the blank steel walls of our room began to shimmer and fade. After a second, it disappeared completely. Standing there were the wall used to be, seven feet tall and more pointy than a Hork-Bajir, was what must have been a Kelbrid.

I'm not kidding when I say that the Kelbrid had more blades than a Hork-Bajir. This thing was absolutely covered in blades. Razor sharp triangles covered the Kelbrid's skin like feathers on a bird. Each feather-blade was dark gray, fading to sea-green at the tip.

The Kelbrid stood on two legs, like a human. It had two arms, too. But it also had two wings, growing from its shoulders. Enormous wings, and covered with blade-feathers big enough to be daggers. The wings weren't shaped like a bird's wings. They were way too angular, and they didn't look like they could bend the same way.

The feet were weird, too. Like an origami version of a hawk's talons. Or like a tripod of triangular blades, each one folded in half to point at the floor. Those blades looked like they could do some damage. I sure hoped the Kelbrid were always careful not to ever step on anyone's toes.

But the head was the strangest thing of all. It was diamond-shaped, and generally looked like one of those polyhedrons you learn about in geometry. All symmetrical and angular and flat-sided.

It had two glassy, dark red, featureless panels where the eyes should be. And, instead of a mouth, it had four diamond-shaped holes in the bottom half of its face.

I was just wondering to myself how Kelbrid could possibly communicate without a mouth if they couldn't hear thought-speak, when the Kelbrid itself decided to clear my puzzlement.

"Ulmah vud lofash. Woul-noah eih graudo Doua," it said. It was somehow talking, using spoken language, without having any sort of mouth that I could see. I have no idea how this was possible, but I supposed I'd seen weirder things.

"She says that she hopes you are comfortable, and that her name is Doua," Menderash said. I was surprised. I hadn't even noticed Menderash standing right next to the Kelbrid. How had I missed him there?

Wait a minute. 'She'? This thing was female? That was a surprise. Not the biggest surprise of the day, but still fairly unexpected.

And there was something about Menderash's tone that gave me the feeling that Doua hadn't actually said 'I hope you're comfortable.' But I of course knew better than to do anything but play along with it.

Jake stood up, immediately going into 'leader' mode. He looked Doua squarely in the eye. "Why are you holding us prisoner?" he demanded. "Aside from Aximili, we haven't broken any treaties. And none of us mean you any harm. Let us go, and we promise to leave your territory immediately."

Menderash translated for Doua. The Kelbrid seemed to be unmoved by Jake's request. Her response was another incomprehensible string of syllables, which Menderash translated for us. "She says that she and her crew have done you a great honor by sparing your lives, and that you should be grateful that they didn't leave you to die. You were in Kelbrid space, and, treaty or no treaty, the Kelbrid do not approve of outsiders. She also says that you will remain in Kelbrid custody until they can decide what to do with you."

"What?!" I snapped, angry. "Our friend gets abducted against his will by this evil mega-weapon of yours, and then we kill it for you, and you thank us by holding us prisoner? What's the deal here?"

Jake held up us hand at Menderash, telling him not to translate my outburst. Instead he said, "Aximili is the only one who did anything wrong here, and he did so against his will. You can't possibly hold that against him. And the rest of us did you a favor, if I understand correctly, by eliminating the One for you. Surely you can show us at least a little hospitality?"

Menderash translated. Doua let loose a long string of sounds, sounding either angry or exasperated, I couldn't tell. Maybe a little of both.

"She says . . . hang on. She said, 'First of all, we do not have proof that Aximili was not already in Kelbrid space when the One took him. All we have is the word of two Andalites, both of whom have something to gain by lying. Second, you are mistaken in thinking that the rest of you are innocent. Andalite or not, you knowingly trespassed in our territory. Third, you did not eliminate the One. In fact, you only made that task much more difficult. You dispersed his energy signature, making it impossible for us to track him. There is no way to know where, or when, he will coalesce again. Fourth, even if you had eliminated the One, you were not doing it as a favor to the Kelbrid. You were doing it to save yourselves. I am not stupid. For all those reasons, you will remain in our custody until we decide otherwise,'" Menderash said, hardly faltering in his translation even despite the length of the speech he had to remember.

There was a beat of silence, as Jake tried not to lose his temper, Menderash stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do, and Doua stared us all down, daring us to challenge her authority.

"Wonderful," I said with sarcastic cheerfulness. "This is absolutely perfect. My day just wouldn't have been complete without being kidnapped by razor-bladed space nazis."
------------------------------------------
Author's note: I originally planned a much more detailed description of the Kelbrid, but I eventually decided that it wasn't really in Marco's character to go that in-depth with detail. Therefore, Marco's fired, and I'll just describe my image of the Kelbrid myself in this author's note.
Marco: Wait a minute. 'Fired' implies 'hired.' You never paid me for any of this! I should sue you!
-hands Marco a dollar- Okay, now you're fired.
Ahem. Anyway.
--Kelbrid Physiology 101--
(Warning: May contain a few very minor spoilers for later chapters of this book)
As Marco said, the Kelbrid are covered in feather-blades. These feather-blades are biggest on the wings, about the size of daggers. The feather-blades on the torso are about average feather-sized, but the ones on the legs and arms are a bit different. The legs and arms are covered in very thin, long blades which look more like very coarse fur than like feathers.
The Kelbrid have long, lanky arms and legs. They have four-fingered (four fingers counting the thumb), dark grey (or in the case of males, black) hands, with pointed fingertips. Their knees bend backward, and their legs have a surprising amount of flexibility. They can easily bend their legs to degrees that would make a person scream. This easy flexibility can make them seem more graceful than they really are.
The wings are, as Marco said, much more angular than a bird's wings. They're essentially shaped like giant triangles, but with a good-sized triangular chunk missing from the lower half of the base of each triangle-wing.
These wings, like the Kelbrids' legs, are more flexible than they look like they ought to be. They have joints where bird wings don't (a joint at the shoulter, and three joints throughout the rest of the wing), giving them an excellent range of movement. This is because, unlike bird wings, Kelbrid wings can be used as weapons, as well as for flight. As Marco said, they're basically covered in daggers. Therefore, they evolved to be flexible enough to be used in combat. Come to think of it, this is the same reason why Kelbrid legs are extra-flexible, too. So that the Kelbrid blade-talons could be utilized to their best extent.
Let's see, what else did Marco leave out . . . oh yeah. The head. As Marco mentioned, the head is roughly diamond-shaped, and polyhedral. The Kelbrid's face, in the shape of a diamond, is divided into two planes by a sort of fold or crease that runs horizontally across the middle. The top half of the face slopes up and back, whereas the bottom half slopes down and back. This head is connected to the shoulders by a somewhat long, almost crane-like neck, which attaches to the back of the head.
Some of you might be wondering how the Kelbrid talk without mouths. I might as well tell you now. The four diamond-shaped holes in the bottom of their face serve as something like a mouth. The holes are arranged in a roughly square pattern (with the bottom two points of the square just a little closer to each other than the top two). These holes connect to the Kelbrid's windpipe. Kelbrid can change the size and shape of their windpipes, to alter the sound that comes through; they use their diaphragm to make sound, and their windpipe to vary the sound to make words. Basically, it works much the same way as talking does in humans, except that their diaphragm takes the place of our vocal chords, and their windpipe takes the place of our mouth and tongue.
As for how Kelbrid eat, they obviously don't have hooves like Andalites. Instead, because of what they eat, they're able to eat through their airholes. Basically, Kelbrid are like the airborne version of baleen whales. On their homeworld, there are many kinds of plants which produce edible spores, and the Kelbrid filter this food out of the air as they fly.
So, there you have it. Everything you wanted to know about the Kelbrid, plus some. Since this was just Kelbrid physiology, there might be a "Kelbrid Sociology 101" in some later chapter of this book, but we'll just have to wait and see. Depends on whose POV that chapter will be, and if they're better at explaining things than Marco.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 7 (Tobias)

The Kelbrid had put me in a cell all to myself. A lone hawk in the middle of a big steel room. I might not have been happy about the confinement, but I welcomed the solitude.

After the initial thought-speak confirmations that everyone was alive and okay, they all fell silent for a while. My hawk hearing picked up muffled, spoken voices, at least one of which sounded distinctly alien, so I guessed that my friends were talking to the Kelbrid. I couldn't hear what they were saying.

That meant I had time to think. Which is rarely a good thing.

I was still completely shaken up by what I'd just gone through. Seeing the One. Thinking Ax was dead. How close I had come to dying, myself.

And I realized that none of this should have upset me nearly as much as it did. I've been on the verge of death before. I've been completely sure I was about to die, on more than one occasion. Why was this time different?

I didn't really want to admit it to myself, but I knew the answer. I wasn't really upset about having nearly died. I was upset about how I'd reacted to the thought of imminent death. I hadn't resisted it. I'd given myself in to it. I'd embraced it.

For a moment, I think I might have actually wanted to die.

I ruffled my wings, unsettled by the thought. What was wrong with me? How weak and pathetic do you have to be that you'd rather die than face another day?

How many times had I faced situations where it would have been so easy to just give up and die? All those times, I'd managed to pull through. But all of a sudden, as soon as I thought Ax was dead, I simply gave up.

Was I really so dependent on my friends that, without them, I would just lose the will to live? Was I really that pathetic?

Thankfully, Santorelli interrupted my thoughts before I could ponder the answers to those questions.

<Tobias, Ax. Just thought I should let you guys know that the rest of us are over here trying to negotiate with a Kelbrid who calls herself Doua. It's not looking good. She seems to think that we all showed serious disrespect to the Kelbrid by entering their territory. And she doesn't seem to care that there are no actual human-Kelbrid treaties against us trespassing. Jake's still negotiating, but he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.>

<I . . . I am sorry to have caused so much trouble,> Ax said apologetically. <We would not be in this situation if I had not been so focused on my mission.>

<Don't worry about it, Ax-man,> I reassured him. <You didn't make us come rescue you. We chose to. That's what friends are for.>

Jake kept negotiating for quite a while longer, with Santorelli relaying updates to Ax and I every now and then.

One of the things Santorelli told us was a bit troubling. Apparently, Jake found out, all the Controllers that had been aboard the Blade Ship had mysteriously disappeared by the time the Kelbrid got there. As if they'd vanished into thin air. According to the Kelbrid, the Blade Ship was totally devoid of life or even any evidence of life. There were not even DNA traces left to show that there had once been a crew. Very suspicious, as Marco pointed out.

Had the One managed to save its followers, right before it vanished? We could only speculate.

After a very lengthy negotiation with Jake, Doua did finally agree to let us all out of our cells, allowing us to roam about the ship. But my instincts told me that this wasn't so much an indication of trust or a gesture of hospitality, so much as a decision that we weren't enough of a threat to merit being contained. Either way, though, I wasn't going to argue.

We were all let out of our cells, carefully watched by the strange, blade-covered, winged creature that was Doua. I was reunited with Jake, Marco, Ax, Menderash, Jeanne, and a demorphed Santorelli. Apparently, the Kelbrid had sorted us by species. That was why Ax and I each wound up in cells by ourselves.

"Man, you two both got single rooms? That's so not fair," Marco complained teasingly. "I think they switched Tobias's reservation with ours, because I know we didn't ask for rats in the mini-fridge. And the room service was terrible! Jake, let's make sure we don't ever stay at this place again."

"Aw, quit your whining," Jake said good-naturedly. "Next time we're on an intergalactic road trip we'll just pull over and sleep in a gas station."

That got a laugh from Marco.

I guess, on some level, I was glad to see that the old Jake-Marco dynamic had returned. That they were both able to joke around and laugh with each other again.

But I was still a long way from forgiving Jake. Maybe I never would.

Doua stalked off, leaving us alone for the time being. I guessed that she had other duties to take care of.

"Ax, Tobias, you should both morph human," Jake told us once she was gone. "If we need to talk to any more Kelbrid, the rest of us don't want to have to translate your thought-speak for you."

I said nothing, but concentrated on my human form. No point in defying orders, especially when I knew that Jake happened to be right.

SPROOT! SPROOT!

Morphing is never predictable. This time, the first things to appear were my human arms, shooting out of my hawk chest like those snake-in-a-can things. They'd come out full-sized, and each one was bigger than my hawk body.

Whumph!

I fell flat on my face, the sudden weight of my arms having thrown me off balance.

"Oh!" Jeanne cried, startled and probably a little weirded out at the odd sight of a hawk with human arms. She and Santorelli weren't as used to morphing as the rest of us were.

My hawk body was already growing to catch up. Still lying on my stomach, my legs shot out across the floor as I grew to human size. My feathers melted into pale human skin, and my morphing suit appeared. Shorts and a t-shirt.

I stumbled to my feet, still not quite done changing. My hawk beak softened into a human nose and mouth. My vision blurred as my eyes changed. Hair grew to replace feathers.

By sheer chance, my wings had been the last thing to change. I still had two broad hawk wings growing out of my now-human back.

"Whoa," Marco commented. "Nice. All you need is a halo."

Ax was done morphing his human self. I hurried up to finish my own morph.

Shrriiikrrkrrk! Shrriiikrrkrrk!

My wings made an absolutely horrible sound as they were wrenched into my back. Even worse than the usual morphing sounds. It sounded something like raw hamburger and gravel being run through a wood chipper.

Marco made a face and said, "Ugh. Nevermind."

"Okay," Jake said, getting right down to business. Ignoring Marco's comments about my weird morph. "We need to explore the ship, meet the rest of the crew. See what we're up against. And try to figure out if there's anything we can do about it."

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 8 (Jake)

The Kelbrid ship was fairly small. Not as small as a bug fighter, but definitely smaller than a Blade Ship. Despite being small, however, the ship didn't feel confining. There weren't many rooms, but the few rooms the ship had were very spacious. There were no closets or hallways, and the few doors that there were opened at least twice as wide as the typical door on Yeerk or Andalite craft. Probably to accomodate the Kelbrid's wide wingspan.

After a while, we made our way to the bridge, hoping to at least meet the rest of Doua's crew. The bridge, like the rest of the ship, was a wide-open space, lined with computers and readouts. Unlike the Andalite and Yeerk craft I'd been in, there seemed to be no thought-controlled displays, but rather everything was operated by hand.

There were four Kelbrid in the room. Doua was there, as well as another Kelbrid that looked more or less like her. But there were also two other Kelbrid that were clearly different from the first two. This new type of Kelbrid had pitch black feather-scales fading to bright, lime green tips. They were also shorter than the other type of Kelbrid, by a good one or two feet, putting them at about the same size as an average human. Their talons were noticeably smaller, and looked somewhat less dangerous than Doua's fearsome claws.

The two black-and-lime-green Kelbrid appeared to be doing nothing except staring, apparently deep in thought, at the stars that could be seen through the ship's main window, at the front of the bridge. Meanwhile Doua paced back and forth, apparently checking the ship's readouts, and the other grey-and-sea-green Kelbrid was focused on doing something involving a pair of joystick-like controls.

The two shorter Kelbrid took a moment to notice us, appearing to snap out of their thoughts. They cautiously approached, curious, but also a little bit uncertain about us.

"Do not fear, we mean you no harm," Ax said, his translator chip allowing him to speak the Kelbrid language with minimal difficulty. I was still getting used to my own translator chip. Getting used to the weirdness of being able to understand a whole new language almost effortlessly. We had all received Andalite translator chip implants before going on the mission to rescue Ax. We figured we might need to talk to alien races, and apparently we'd figured right. My own translator chip had adjusted to the Kelbrid language during my 'negotiations' with Doua.

The two Kelbrid nodded, seemingly reassured by what Ax had said.

"I'm Jake," I said, stepping up to make the introductions for my group. "My friends here are Aximili, Marco, Tobias, Menderash, Jeanne, and Santorelli," I said, pointing at each of them in turn.

"This Kelbrid is Vuhl," one of the Kelbrid said respectfully, pointing a finger to indicate the Kelbrid who was operating the joysticks. "You have met Doua," the Kelbrid continued, indicating Doua, who glanced our way for a moment before going back to her rounds. "My name is Zu. This is Bahm," Zu finished, pointing to the other black-and-lime-green Kelbrid. I briefly wondered why Zu had introduced Vuhl and Doua first, but shrugged it off as probably just some weird alien custom.

"Where are the other Andalite and the winged one?" the Kelbrid called Bahm asked.

"I am an Andalite," Ax said. "And I believe Tobias is the winged one to which you refer," he added, indicating Tobias with a wave of his hand.

"Ah, I had heard that Andalites possessed the ability to change shape," Zu said. He turned to Tobias. "Are you an Andalite, as well?"

"Yes," Tobias said, apparently figuring that it would be easier to give the Kelbrid the answer they wanted to hear than to tell the truth. "I am an Andalite, but due to unusual circumstances, my natural form is that of a hawk."

That was a good move on Tobias's part. Now the Kelbrid wouldn't have any reason to suspect that the rest of us were morph-capable, too. I've found that it's always good to have that particular ace up our sleeves.

"Are you a different species of Kelbrid?" Santorelli asked. I have to admit, I was also curious about the two apparently different types of Kelbrid, but my instinct for diplomacy had kept me from saying anything.

Bahm and Zu both just kind of stared at us. Then Zu started to laugh in amazement. At least, I think it was laughter. It sounded a bit like loud, rapid hiccups. "Hup hup hup!" was the noise he made. "Do humans not have sexes?" he asked, sounding amused.
Ooookay. So, apparently, the two types of Kelbrid were actually male and female.
"Yes, we have sexes," I said. I looked around, thinking to illustrate my point, and realized that Jeanne was the only female in our group. I pointed at her and explained, "Jeanne is a female. The rest of us are male."

Zu laughed even harder now. "Hup hup hup hup hup! How can you fly a ship with so many males and only one female?" I had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to mean. And the rest of our little group looked just as confused as I was.

Bahm, on the other hand, discreetly looked Jeanne up and down, then did the same with me. Apparently trying to tell male from female. I guess he didn't see a difference, because he nervously asked, as though afraid of offending us, "How can you tell?"

Ax answered. "There are a number of visible anatomical diff-"

"Girls have long hair," Tobias said, cutting Ax off on purpose. "Well, most of the time, anyway."

"Look at it this way," Marco said. "If you see someone staring lustfully at me, they're a girl. If not, they're a guy."

I rolled my eyes at Marco. Then I clarified to a very confused Zu and Bahm, "The differences are a little hard to explain. So don't worry about it. Just remember that Jeanne's the only girl in our group, and you should be fine."

Zu's laughter had faded away, replaced by a look of curiosity. At least, as far as I could read curiosity in such an alien face. But he definitely seemed interested in us.

"Anything else you wanna know about humans?" Marco asked.

"Or Andalites?" Ax added.

"We'll tell you all you want to know about our cultures, if you tell us about yours," I offered.

Zu's eyes positively lit up at the suggestion. He was literally speechless with excitement for a second or two, before practically shouting, "Yes yes! Tell me everything!"

Bahm, however, looked downright unsettled by the idea. He slowly shook his head, as though there were something about this whole situation that was bothering him. "Zu, you can't be serious," he said slowly, disbelievingly.

"Why not? I mean, sure, this is an unconventional situation, but we cannot expect to learn anything if we always live by tradition! We shouldn't assume that kuldir must be unknowable, simply because that's what we've always been told," Zu argued.

I didn't have a clue what either of them was talking about. And it didn't help that he'd used a word, kuldir, that my translator chip couldn't handle.

Bahm looked taken aback by Zu's impudence.

"Um, what's going-" Marco began, but Bahm interrupted him to answer Zu.

"It isn't a matter of learning or tradition. It's a matter of accepting the simple truth. We are Kelbrid, they are not," he said softly. He looked at Zu. "We can't agree to this, this pretentious barter of biased knowledge. It's not just wrong, but futile. We cannot think the way kuldir think, no matter how much we might believe we do. We are Kelbrid." Then he looked directly at Ax, and said, "It is foolish and vulgar to pretend to understand anything else."

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 9 (Ax)

"Excuse me?" I said. My thoughts were a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Had the Kelbrid insulted me? His tone had sounded like an insult. But I did not understand his meaning.

"You heard me, Andalite," Bahm replied, softly but with thinly veiled hostility. "Is it not true that Andalites believe in some idealistic notion of universal morality? Absolute standards of good and evil. You think that all races think the way you think, and if they don't, they're wrong. You think that you can even understand the way every race thinks. But you can't."

"Bahm, now's not the time to-" Zu began, but Bahm cut him off.

"We Kelbrid, however, believe that all races simply are the way they are. Good and evil are subjective terms. Defined differently by each race. And even by each individual within that race. Such concepts are not absolute. How could they be? Where would you find an absolute standard of good and evil? What is considered evil by one race can be good to another. Who can say which one is wrong? The answer is that no one can, because neither is wrong. Different races have different pasts, different perspectives. A complete, mutual understanding between two different sentient species is impossible."

There it was. The true reason for the long-standing enmity between Kelbrid and Andalites. I would never have guessed that the difference between our species could be something so fundamental as our most basic moral principles. We believed that sentient life was at least enough alike that understanding between races was possible. At the very least, we were all enough alike to be judged on the same terms. But Kelbrid believed that races were fundamentally so different that each had to have its own standards of right and wrong.

Bahm was wrong. There was a definite, absolute right and wrong, good and evil. If such concepts had a different meaning to every perspective, what would be the point of defining 'good' and 'evil' at all? The very idea of 'morality' would become devoid of meaning.

Wouldn't it?

"Now, I do not pretend to understand Andalite thinking," Bahm went on. "Nor can I call Andalites evil. All I know is what all Kelbrid know about Andalites, which is that, in the past, at least, they have had a tendency to force their morality on other races. Most famously the Yeerks, if I recall correctly. And I also know that all of you are in Kelbrid territory. Since it was your choice to come here, not our choice to recieve you, our own Kelbrid morality and customs should take priority over whatever beliefs about right and wrong that you might have. Don't you agree?"

"No, I don't," Jake said. "I don't think that one viewpoint takes precedence over another so long as compromise is possible."

"True compromise between differing viewpoints is almost never possible," Bahm replied.

"I don't really see what any of this has to do with us swapping stories, anyway," Marco cut in.

"You don't?" Bahm asked, sounding surprised at Marco's statement. As if it should be obvious. He looked perplexed for a moment, as if trying to think of how to explain a concept that he had taken for granted. "Sentient life is based on judgments," he began. "You cannot have free will without knowing, at least on some instinctual level, what you consider to be good or bad. If you didn't, you would be incapable of ever making a decision. Right? Therefore, all races will make their own judgments of everything they encounter. It's a fundamental and instinctual part of free will; you cannot escape it. The only way, therefore, to prevent one race from judging another through their own biased perspective, is to make sure that all sentient races share with each other as little as possible. The idea of 'swapping stories' with kuldir violates everything we believe in."

"You keep using that word. Kuldir. What does it mean?" Santorelli asked.

Zu cut in to explain, seeming relieved that he finally had a chance to talk. "You are kuldir. Kuldir is . . . the opposite of Kelbrid. It simply means any sentient being that is not Kelbrid."

Tobias had been listening closely to the entire conversation. It was apparent that he had been thinking carefully about everything that was being said. "Aren't you breaking your own rules just by telling us all of this?" he said. "You say you don't believe in absolute right and wrong, yet you want us to accept that your way of looking at the world is right and ours is wrong. Your whole morality contradicts itself."

"No, it does not," Bahm maintained. "It only seems that way because I have only explained the very basics of Kelbrid philosophy. There is much more to our customs and laws, which I will refrain from explaining, both because it would take hours, and because you are right. It is not our place to try to change you. You are different from us. We accept this. Do you?"

"We shouldn't just accept it," Marco argued. "If we just say, 'Oh, we're different from each other, so we can't ever learn about each other,' then what if we're really not as different as we think? We'd never know about it, because we'd have already closed our minds to each other."

"That sounds an awful lot like racism," Santorelli commented darkly.

"Racism?" Zu asked. Apparently that was not a word that translated into the Kelbrid language.

"You know, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping," Prince Jake clarified.

"No no!" Bahm said. "It is precisely the opposite of all that. By isolating the races, we prevent such misunderstandings."

"Bahm, listen to them. I think they might be right. How do we know how different we are unless we have an open mind?" Zu asked hesitantly, as though voicing something he knew to be heresy.

"No," Bahm said flatly. "Races may think they understand each other, but that means nothing. Because, after all, who is it that does the understanding? A different race, with a different perspective. A biased observer. All observers are inherently biased. We may think we see similarities in each other, but who can say that those similarities aren't simple coincidences? Different perspectives, which happen to coincide at one or two points?"

"Or are we all fundamentally the same?" I said, joining the intellectual debate. "Would it not be just as reasonable to assume that our differences are attributable to circumstance, as it would be to assume that our similarities are attributable to coincidence?"

"That's exactly the point. You can't know one way or the other. And it is far safer to assume that you understand nothing, than to think you understand anything," Bahm said.
I turned my human head to look around at my friends. Jake, my prince. Tobias, my shorm. Humans. Different from me, yet not so different.

"But would it not be worth it?" I asked. "To actually understand?"

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 10 (Tobias)

"They're insane. Plain and simple. Nutty as Helmacrons," Marco said simply. "You can't just discount everyone as 'different' and then refuse to even try to understand each other."
We had gone to an area of the Kelbrid ship away from the bridge, out of earshot of our Kelbrid captors. Actually, Bahm had told us to leave the bridge for a while so that the crew could deliberate and decide what they were going to do with us, their prisoners. Ax and I were demorphed, and we were all discussing what we knew about the Kelbrid so far, and what we could do with it.

<I don't think so, Marco,> I said. <They have a good point. I mean, yeah, some races seem pretty similar, like Andalites and humans. But others, like . . . well, take the Helmacrons. As you just made very clear, none of us understand them. But what is it that makes us 'normal' and them 'nutty'?>

"They're less than an inch tall and think they're going to conquer the universe, for one thing," Marco shot back.

<For them, that's normal. Maybe they think we're nutty because we aren't trying to conquer the universe.>

"Guys! Let's focus here," Jake said, exasperated. "The point is not to argue ethics, okay? We're trying to figure out a way off this ship. Now, I think Zu's our best bet for a Kelbrid we can trust-"

"Which isn't saying much," Marco muttered.

"-because he doesn't seem to be as entrenched in the xenophobic Kelbrid dogma as Bahm is," Jake said. "And of course Doua is-"

"A nazi," Marco finished, interrupting Jake again.

"Pretty much," Jake agreed. "She's the one in charge, and she doesn't like it when anyone disagrees with her. And I got the feeling that she doesn't like us kuldir very much, either."

"What about Vuhl?" Jeanne asked.

"What about her? She never talked to us," Marco pointed out.

"How does she fit into all of this?" Jeanne clarified.

Jake shrugged. "We don't know. We'll just have to make an allowance for her as an unknown factor."

"Well, she seemed really focused on whatever it was she was doing," Santorelli pointed out, trying to be helpful. "So we could probably assume she's a workaholic, maybe?"

"Either that, or she's just anti-social," Marco said.

"You know what? Vuhl might actually be important, after all," Jake said thoughtfully. I could tell from his expression that a plan was forming. "I noticed earlier that the males act deferential to the females. Notice how Zu introduced Vuhl and Doua before himself and Bahm? Maybe, if we can't get through to Doua, we can at least try talking to her second-in-command."

"And you're saying that's Vuhl? I wouldn't be so sure, man," Marco said, skeptical. "We're just going on the order they were introduced in. Trying to figure out their ranking from that detail alone is a pretty dubious step."

<And did Zu not introduce Vuhl first? That would seem to indicate that Vuhl out-ranks Doua. Which does not seem to be the case,> Ax pointed out.

"Maybe Zu just figured that we'd already met Doua," Jake countered.

"I think we might be over-analyzing this," Marco said. "I mean, who knows? Maybe, in their language, they were going in alphabetical order. Or maybe Zu's just into chivalry. There's dozens of other explanations."

"Still, I think we should talk to Vuhl," Jake said firmly. "I just have this feeling she's important."

Before any of us could argue with him any more, we heard the sound of claws against the metal floor of the ship. One of the Kelbrid was coming.

The Kelbrid rounded a corner, and we saw that it was Zu. "We have reached our decision," he announced. "We will take you with us to our planet, where our best philosophers can decide the matter of your fate."

We all nodded and made our various noises of approval. Or, in my case, just nodded.

We would play along. Act cooperative. Pretend that we approved of the idea of being put on trial by these Kelbrid philosophers, or whatever they were.

But, of course, we had no intention of sticking around.

"What's the plan, Jake?" Marco asked in English so that the Kelbrid wouldn't understand him.

"Play along. Try not to make anybody mad, but also don't act so compliant that they get suspicious. I'm going to try to get Vuhl alone," Jake answered. "If I can't get anywhere with her, plan B is to take this ship by force. The element of surprise is on our side."

Then he grinned that dangerous, reckless grin. Rachel's grin.

Marco groaned, obviously having noticed Jake's expression. "We're all gonna die, aren't we?"

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 11 (Jake)

It would be a while until I got a chance to talk to Vuhl alone. In the mean time, I realized that none of us had even thought about eating in at least twenty-four hours. And now we were feeling the effects.

"Ugh," Marco complained. "I'm starving."

"Here," Zu offered helpfully, leading us off to the side of the bridge. He picked up what looked like an oxygen mask, and held it out to Marco.

"Uh," Marco stuttered. "I'm sorry, but we don't eat air."

"Not air. Piroth. What do humans eat?" Zu asked, apparently surprised that humans couldn't eat anything from a gas mask.

"Nothing that can be inhaled. At least, not unless you count crack cocaine as a food," Marco said.

<What's piroth?> Tobias asked. Then he remembered that Zu couldn't hear him. I repeated the question out loud for him.

"Piroth is . . . a powder. Made by plants, to grow more plants. It floats in the air, and Kelbrid absorb it." He pointed at the four diamond-shaped holes in his face, apparently at a loss to explain exactly how Kelbrid could absorb a powder.

<Plant spores,> Tobias translated. <Yuck.>

"This from the guy who eats rats," Marco muttered.

"What is 'crack cocaine'?" Zu asked. Apparently that was something that didn't have a Kelbrid equivalent.

"It's a powder, too. But it's bad for you. It's a drug," I said.

"Ah," Zu said. "So do humans not normally eat powders from the air? How do you eat, then?"

"We just put stuff into our mouths and chew," I said with a shrug. "See?" I worked my jaw to demonstrate. Zu looked mesmerized by the utter strangeness of my mouth. As if he'd missed seeing it before I'd pointed it out.

"I apologize, but I can only offer you piroth to eat," Zu said after I'd finished demonstrating. "We have three varieties. Rune, darvon, or thywer?"

"What do they taste like?" Jeanne asked.

Zu looked perplexed as he tried to find words to explain. "They taste like runei, darvon, and thywer. I'm afraid I know of nothing else to compare them to."

So we all just sort of picked flavors at random. I think mine was darvon. After Marco made an attempt to use the oxygen-mask apparatus and was overtaken by a massive coughing fit, we decided to eat the piroth in powdered, non-inhalant form.

I stared at my lunch. A pile of grey-green powder. Cautiously, I pinched a fingerful of it and put it on my tongue.

It wasn't bad, actually. I can't quite describe the taste, but the closest analog would be spiciness. But sort of nutty-tasting, too, with a bit of a sweet aftertaste. Not bad, for plant spores.

<Ugh, you've got to be kidding me,> Tobias complained. <I can't eat plants. My digestive system can only handle meat. What am I supposed to do?>

"Morph to human?" Marco suggested.

<No, that wouldn't work. What I eat as a human doesn't feed my hawk self.>

There was a long pause, as we all thought about the options.

Ax, cautiously looked up from the hoof he was grinding into a pile of ochre-colored runei powder. He fidgeted a little, avoiding looking directly at Tobias. <I . . . may have an idea,> he said slowly, obviously not quite wanting to say what he was about to say. <I do not know if you will find it acceptable, but, if there is no other option . . . perhaps . . . >

<Come on, Ax, spit it out. I'm sure it beats going hungry. What's your idea?> Tobias said.

<Well, the morphing technology regenerates missing tissue, so . . . one of us could . . . > Ax stuttered.

"What?! Oh my god. Are you really suggesting what I think you are suggesting? That is disgusting," Jeanne exclaimed, having immediately figured out what Ax was hinting.

<Whoa. That's . . . well, I mean . . . um. That's certainly an idea, alright,> Tobias managed to stutter. He's probably the least squeamish of all of us, and even he was weirded out by what Ax was suggesting.

I was beyond weirded out. I felt downright sick.

"Ugh," I managed to groan.

Marco, on the other hand, glanced around the room and asked, "Any volunteers?"

Nobody volunteered.

There was a reason why Ax's idea was making me feel uneasy. Because I knew it had to be me. I felt like I owed Tobias something. I could tell that he still hadn't quite forgiven me, even after all these years. It was up to me to make the first steps towards peace between us. Which meant I couldn't pass up an opportunity to do him this big a favor.

I hesitantly raised my hand, volunteering myself. "How do you feel about rhinoceros meat?" I asked.

<To be honest, I've never tried it,> Tobias responded.

I made an excuse to Zu, and we all headed off to an area of the ship where he couldn't see us. Out of sight of any Kelbrid, I focused on my rhinoceros morph.

My arms and legs bulked up into pillars, my face erupted into the rhinoceros's horn, and my skin hardened into armor. I was a living tank.

Whoa. It had been forever since I'd done this morph. I'd forgotten how bad the rhinoceros's eyesight was. I could barely even see Marco. But I could still hear him.

"Come on, you have to say it. Say it, Jake. You can't pass this one up. Seriously, how many chances will you have to make this joke ever again? You've gotta say it," Marco begged.

I had a feeling I knew what joke he was talking about. I sighed, but consented. Just to make Marco happy.

<Oh, alright, alright! Tobias, you wanna piece of me?> I said, in my best 'tough guy' voice. Which was probably pretty pathetic.

<Bring it on, big Jake,> Tobias replied, joking back. I was relieved that he was able to joke around with me like that. It meant we were making at least a little progress.

"Ax? You ready to slice up Jake like a christmas ham?" Marco said.

<Better question. Am I ready to be sliced up like a christmas ham?> I said.

<Yes, I am ready. I must sincerely apologize, Prince Jake. Please forgive me,> Ax said. Then he slashed his tail into my flank. I felt one, two, three sharp stings, then heard a wet-sounding thump. It didn't hurt as much as I was worried it might. Rhinoceroses are pretty tough.

I demorphed. Once my eyes were back, I saw Tobias tearing into a rat-sized piece of rhino meat. Meat that had been attached to me just moments ago.

I tried my best to shake off the willies. Of course, they came rushing right back the moment Marco asked, "So, Tobias, what does 'fearless leader' taste like?"

<Not bad> he answered. <A lot better than mice and rats, actually.>

Despite how utterly creeped out I was still feeling, I had to laugh. "Oh, gee, that's good to know."

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 12 (Jake)

The rest of the day passed without incident. That night (not that there's a difference between night and day in space, but I just mean when everyone else had decided to sleep), I finally got a chance to talk to Vuhl. As usual, she was focused on her work at a computer terminal in the bridge. She didn't even notice me approach.

"Hello," I greeted, acting casual. "You're Vuhl, right?"

She didn't turn around. "Hmm? What do you want? Are the males not keeping you company?" The way she said it was weird. As if it were the males' job to entertain us, and thus she shouldn't have to.

"No, it's not that," I said. "It's just that I've met everyone else on this ship, but I've never talked to you. I just wanted to get to know you, since we might be stuck together a while."

"Getting to know you isn't my job. That's for Zu and Bahm to do. My job is making sure this ship works right. Now if you'll excuse me," she said, hoping I would get the hint and leave.

"Why are you so concerned about what is or isn't your job? Just because you don't have to do something doesn't mean you aren't allowed to," I said, trying to press her to talk to me.

Finally, she actually turned to look at me. It was tough to tell, but I think she looked angry. "Don't push your ideas on me, kuldir. I don't particularly care about ethics, least of all yours. Do I look like a male to you?"

"What?" I asked, confused. "Uh, no, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"Males think. Females act," she said simply, turning away from me again. "Is that not the way it works with your kind, kuldir?"

"No, that isn't how we humans work. What do you mean, 'males think, females act'?" I asked, hoping for a little more clarification.

Vuhl sighed, apparently realizing I wasn't going away until she explained. She talked in a rush, as if hoping that the quicker she gave me an answer, the sooner I would leave. "Kelbrid females are stronger, more physically skilled than males. Thus, females take care of practical things, like mechanical work and keeping kuldir in line. Kelbrid males are smarter. So they take care of things like philosophy. Companionship. And ethics."

It clicked. Of course. Males think, females act. That explained why we had thought Doua was in charge. Because she had been the one to take charge. Leadership was more a practical skill than a philosophical one. I knew that from experience. True, a good leader needed to be smart, but even more important was the ability to act decisively.

I also recalled what Zu had said when we first met him. Something about not being able to run a ship with so many males and only one female. Of course. 'Males think, females act.' From a Kelbrid perspective, if a ship was run by too many males, its crew would overthink every decision and never get anything done. Zu must have just assumed that humans worked the same way.

For a species that claimed not to want to have anything to do with other races, the Kelbrid sure made a lot of assumptions about us.

"I am sorry to have been rude to you, kuldir," Vuhl said, shaking me out of my thoughts. "But you have to understand that I care nothing for companionship. I am just a mechanic. I care only for my machines. Living beings are far too complicated."

"Yeah, I feel that way sometimes too," I admitted. "But, I guess I just figure that some of the time it's worth it, you know?"

"Perhaps . . . some of the time," Vuhl conceeded slowly. "I do enjoy Doua's company, at least." As soon as she said it, she suddenly looked like she regretted letting that bit of information slip.

"Doua? Really," I said. "She's a good friend of yours, then?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"I don't know. It's just that she seemed a little . . . harsh."

"Of course she struck you that way. You're kuldir. She has to keep a distance from you. Which is what I should be doing, too." She turned back to whatever it was she had been working on.

"Why are you doing this?" I said suddenly. "If you're so mad that we came into your territory in the first place, why are you taking us back to your planet?"

"That was not my decision," she said. I thought she might go on, but she didn't. She went back to whatever she was doing, apparently thinking I was finally going to be done bothering her.

I suddenly realized that this discussion had turned into a dead end. Anything I said at this point to try to salvage the conversation would probably just make Vuhl angry again, so I said, "Well, thanks for talking to me. I'll leave you alone."

I walked away. She kept working as if I had never been there.

When I got back to where my friends were sleeping, Marco was already awake. "Well?" he asked expectantly.

"Plan B," I replied. With negotiations with Vuhl being a dead end, no choice now but to fight our way off of this ship. And better to attack while most of the Kelbrid were sleeping.

Marco groaned, but then he and I shook the others awake. They yawned and stretched, Tobias ruffled his feathers, and Ax simply opened his eyes as if he hadn't even been sleeping in the first place. "Battle morphs," I whispered. Immediately, wordlessly, my friends began to shift and change.

Orange fur was already spreading up my arms. Black stripes bled like ink across my fur. Claws grew out of the tips of my fingers. My gums itched as my canine teeth grew long and sharp. I fell onto four legs, and a tail shot out of my rump, completing my transformation.

I was a tiger. My tail twitched, and I surveyed my surroundings with my keen tiger eyes. I saw a Hork-Bajir, an Andalite, a gorilla, a wolf, a lioness, and Menderash as a human. I could feel the familiar pre-battle rush, and suddenly it was as if the last three years had never happened. I was back in the game, ready to fight.

We all looked around at each other, as if we couldn't quite believe that we were actually getting ready to go into battle again after so long.

Tobias flexed his bladed arms, seeming to admire their strength. At last, he quietly spoke, in a voice tinted with nostalgia.

<Let's do it.>

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 13 (Marco)

<Menderash, stay here. You should be safe,> Jake ordered. <The rest of us, let's move out. Try to keep quiet. We don't want all the Kelbrid on us at once if we can help it. Marco and Ax, go for this ship's controls as soon as we get there. The rest of us can keep Vuhl distracted.>

I walked on my knuckles towards the bridge. I was a gorilla. A creature that could rip trees out of the ground, that could knock out a Hork-Bajir with a single well-aimed punch. But even I was a little worried. None of us had ever gone head-to-head with a Kelbrid before. Were they a fighting race? We didn't know. Could we beat them? Didn't know that, either.

When we reached the bridge, everything happened at once. Jake lunged for Vuhl, still at her console. He hit her from behind, and she screamed a hissing, alien shriek.

"SHRYEEEE!"

Jake fell back, his paws bloody from Vuhl's blade-feathers. Black, alien blood mixed with the red blood Jake had left on Vuhl's wings. She'd been hurt, too.

I lunged for the nearest console, and Ax followed suit. My big gorilla hands were just barely dexterous enough to work most of the controls. But the real problem was figuring out what button did what.

Vuhl had shot into the air as soon as Jake fell back. With every flap of her wings, she kept out of our reach. "DOUA!" she yelled. "The kuldir are attacking!" I heard the sound of Kelbrid talons racing for the bridge.

Vuhl suddenly saw what I was doing at the console and swooped down on me. Her bladed talons were in my eyes before I could even shield myself.

"Hroooaaar!" I roared in pain as blood gushed from my face where my eyes used to be. I was blind!

I could only hear what was going on. I heard Doua's voice, accusing, "Miserable kuldir! This is how you reward us for trusting you!" I heard Tobias's Hork-Bajir grunts of pain. Santorelli's wolf howling in terror. Jeanne's lioness snarling like an echo of Jake's more intimidating roars. Ax's tail blade snapping like a bullwhip. And the wingbeats of alien wings.

I felt the Kelbrid attacking me, again and again. Sheets of blades slapped against my back and sides. And every time I reached out blindly to retaliate against my unseen attackers, my groping hands found nothing.

My fur was soaked with hot, sticky blood. The gorilla's blood.

BOOM.

It wasn't really a sound that I heard, but rather an explosion that I could feel, going off in my bones. I thought I'd experienced every sort of agony there was, but a brand new kind of pain tore into my shoulder. You know that sort of deep, thudding feeling you get deep in your chest at a really loud rock concert? That intense throbbing that feels like it might rip you apart? Multiply that by a thousand, and concentrate it all in one spot. That's about what it felt like.

I could feel my shoulder blade shatter from the force, and the gorilla roared in pain.

I quickly came to realize that there just was no way I could fight if I couldn't see. I knew I had to fall back and demorph. I stumbled as far away as I could get from the sounds of battle, backing myself up against a wall. I tried to find a place to hide, but without being able to see where I was, there was no way to know whether or not I was out of sight. I found the best place I could, and cautiously resumed my human shape. I knew I was taking a huge risk, but, at the time, I couldn't think of any other choice. I could feel my gorilla muscles draining away, my leather skin being absorbed into my pathetically weak human flesh. My eyes re-formed last. I could see.

To my horror, I saw that Doua still had a perfectly clear view of me, in my human form, almost completely helpless. Before I could even think of morphing again, she was on me. She held something against my head that looked a lot like a gun. It didn't really look like a Dracon beam, or an Andalite shredder. It actually looked more like a high-tech, alien version of a regular human gun. Except that the barrel was a lot wider than that of a human gun. This thing could've fired a golf ball.

I was willing to bet that it was that gun that was responsible for the shock wave that had shattered my shoulder. And I was willing to bet a lot more that I wouldn't like what it would do to my skull.

"You have fought bravely, kuldir," Doua proclaimed to everyone in the room. "But you have lost. Surrender now, unless you care nothing for your fellow."

I looked at my friends. It had apparently been a pretty rough battle. Jeanne was sprawled on the floor, her lioness form lacerated, lying in a puddle of blood, barely moving. Tobias was missing an eye, and there was a perilously deep cut pumping Hork-Bajir blood from his serpentine neck. Santorelli was nowhere to be seen. There was a long gash down Ax's flank, and his tail was hanging at a weird angle, probably broken. Jake held one paw off the ground, and he was panting heavily, his own bright red blood dripping from his jaw with every breath. Both his eyes were bleeding, but he, at least, seemed to have had the good sense not to demorph.

It wasn't like we hadn't hurt Doua and Vuhl. There was almost as much black Kelbrid blood staining the deck as there was our blood, and the floor was littered with broken blade-feathers. Almost a foot of Vuhl's left wing had been sliced off, and she was staring in speechless horror at the bleeding remnant. Doua sported a number of deep gashes and cuts across her torso. But, just the same, it was plain to see that she was right. We had lost.

Six against two, and we had lost. And it was all my fault.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter 14 (Tobias)

We spent the rest of our trip locked up in cells once more. This time, however, the Kelbrid had put each of us in solitary confinement. We had broken whatever tiny flicker of trust they had in us, and now they weren't going to give us an inch. They weren't even going to let us see each other.

They were either trying to break our spirits, or trying to keep us from plotting something together. I'm not entirely sure which. Perhaps both.

I managed to wind up in a cell with a window this time, at least. I looked out at the starry backdrop of space. We'd gone through Zero-space some time ago, without even realizing it. Now we were making the final, real-space descent towards the Kelbrid home planet. 'Kelbri,' I think was what Bahm had called it. What a creative name.

I could see the planet as a tiny, marble-sized ball of golden yellow, black, and a few scattered hints of blue. It didn't look at all like earth, but I supposed I might have considered it beautiful, under other circumstances.

Of course, it's hard to find anything beautiful when viewed from the tiny window of a steel-walled cell.

Slowly spinning around Kelbri was a chestnut-brown moon, almost a quarter the size of the Kelbrid planet itself. The moon's surface was pockmarked with charred-black craters and canyons, perhaps evidence of some long-ago fiery catastrophe. As I gazed up at it, I was suddenly overcome by a feeling of dread. There was a dark secret about that moon. I'm not sure quite what gave me that idea, but I was sure of it, all the same. Something about that charred, floating sphere . . . wasn't right.

I ruffled my feathers, trying to shake off the vague, unsettled feeling the Kelbrid moon was giving me. There was no point in worrying about dark secrets and dead moons.

The descent towards Kelbri turned out to be quite a long trip. We all did what we could to entertain ourselves.

<Okay, I've got one,> Marco said. <Why did the Ellimist cross the road?>

<I do not know, Marco. Why did the Ellimist cross the road?> Ax asked.

<Nobody knows,> Marco replied.

There was a pause. <Wait, was that it? Was that the punchline?> Jake asked. <Sorry, Marco, but I'm going to have to give that one a three.>

<You're losing your sense of humor, buddy. You know that joke was at least a five.>

<What do the numbers three and five have to do with a road and the Ellimist?> Menderash asked, utterly confused.

<Don't try to understand it, Menderash,> I told him. <It's not worth it, trust me.>

The whole trip, it was basically the same routine. Marco telling jokes, the rest of us letting him know what we thought of them. Those of us who weren't naturally thought-speak capable taking a break to demorph every couple hours.

Trust me, if any of us could think of anything better to do, we would have. After about the twentieth lame punchline, we were all sick of Marco's voice. And his jokes.

Santorelli was perceptibly silent throughout most of the trip. He had run away from his first battle, and it was clear that he wasn't forgiving himself easily. I wouldn't have pegged him as anything resembling a coward, but you can never know what someone will do in a fight until they're in the middle of it.

In his defense, of course, it had been Santorelli's first real battle, and it was a pretty intense one, at that. So maybe it wasn't fair to call him a coward.

But then, Jeanne hadn't run. It had been her first battle, too. Was she just unusually brave, or was Santorelli cowardly?

Oh, well. I supposed that none of that mattered now. It wasn't like any of us would be fighting our way out of our cells.

After a few hours, Zu came by to make sure we were fed. He stuck a transparent cylinder filled with sky-blue powder through a hole in the wall of my cell, which immediately closed up again.

I was hungry, but of course I couldn't eat piroth. I stared enviously at the blue powder. <I just had to get stuck as a carnivore, didn't I?> I complained to myself.

Thankfully, we finally arrived on the Kelbrid planet not too much later.

I watched out the window as we made the final descent. We landed in a grassy plain that reminded me a little of a savannah on earth. There were no trees anywhere I could see, just an endless stretch of golden-yellow cottony brambles, weird dark blue-green triangle-shaped leaves, and tall, khaki-colored rods.

Near where we landed, I could see giant silvery structures of some sort that were clearly artificial. There were towering cliffs and spires, looking like one of those tourist-attraction rock formations you might find naturally in New Mexico or Arizona or something. You know, the sort of thing that's all canyons and mesas, supposedly carved out by the wind or whatever? Except that this 'formation' was all silver and glass.

We all stepped out of the ship once we'd been fitted with all the appropriate restraining devices. The humans had something a lot like handcuffs on their hands and feet, and Ax was wearing an elaborate contraption of wires to restrain his tail. As for me, I had cloth wrapped around my talons to render them useless, and a muzzle on my beak. Something like a leash was tied to my left leg, making sure I didn't fly away. Zu held the other end of it, letting me fly tight circles over our sad little group.

Vuhl's injured wing had healed, but it was still only about two-thirds of a wing. Kelbrid didn't have morphing technology to repair their injuries, after all. Vuhl kept glancing balefully at Ax, and I can't say I blamed her. If someone cut off one of my wings, and I couldn't just morph to repair it, I'd be pretty furious, too. Actually, the thought that occurred to me was that she didn't seem nearly as angry as she ought to have been.

I looked back at the Kelbrid ship, seeing it from the outside for the first time. It was bright, gleaming silver, the same silver as the city. The central shaft was a diamond-shaped prism whose sides were concave towards the front, with two of the front corners pinching out into elongated points, and convex towards the back, the prism sweeping back and narrowing into a graceful-looking 'tail.' Also towards the back, the sides of the prism were arrayed with four parallel rows of forward-raked spines, vaguely reminiscent of fins. The ship had an interesting mix of geometry, grace, and ferocity. Sort of like the Kelbrid, themselves.

Five humans and an Andalite shuffled into the Kelbrid city, watched closely by our captors, as I drifted above. It wasn't very far to the city, but with the tense silence hanging over us all, it felt like a lot farther than it was.

Up close to the city, I could see that it was actually a more-or-less open structure. Sort of like the support frame for an unfinished building, but arranged in flowing, organic shapes, and decked out with silver platforms, sheets of glass, gigantic spinning fans, and various sorts of alien furniture and equipment. It all had the effect of looking smooth and solid from a distance, but open and airy up close.

The place buzzed with activity. Kelbrid flew through and around the structure, many of them seeming to ride the air currents created by the fans.

Doua greeted a pair of female Kelbrid standing vigil at the nearest 'road' into the city. "Good day," she said to them. "Do you know when the philosopher-court will next convene?"

The two Kelbrid looked warily at our group, as if they didn't quite trust kuldir in their city. Or maybe even on their planet. "Two days," one of them said, as she looked up distractedly at me.

"Why in the name of Lethon did you bring them here?" the other said angrily, talking to Doua while pointing an accusing finger at my friends. "If they were trespassing, you could have killed them just as easily as-"

"Quiet!" Zu interrupted. "They can understand you!" He looked around at us, and up at me, to see our reactions. My hawk expression betrayed nothing, of course, but it was clear that my friends were more than a little unsettled by what the second Kelbrid had started to say.

"Are you really so worried about the tender feelings of kuldir?" the same Kelbrid joked. "Blades forbid that we should ever punish trespassers!"

Vuhl then spoke in a voice so soft I'm not even sure the others could hear her.

"Punish the trespassers. If only it were that simple. But it never is, is it?"

As I drifted high above the dismal group of my friends and the strange aliens we were barely even beginning to understand, I silently agreed with her.