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Trouble crouches down beside him, concerned but helpless.

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Twins' hands clasp each other tighter. "I just concentrate on her...?"

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<Yes. Quickly.>

The Andalite is looking at Trouble with three eyes, now, one still nervously following lights in the sky as they search.
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Andi's eyelashes flutter.

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Bella bites her lip.

And they're already sisters, so it's subtle, but she -
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<You must run, now. Hide, and better than you did from me. They must not catch you, and they are coming.>

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Ethan pulls Robin away from the group and starts running.

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Robin follows his lead.

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Trouble lingers, putting a tentative hand on the alien's blue-furred arm.

"I don't want you to die," he murmurs.
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The twins, distinguishable now only by outfit, bolt. They find a concrete wall with small holes in it, presumably intended for wiring or plumbing, so they can still see what's going on.

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<The injury is irrecoverable. If it were not, I could not risk being taken alive, in any case.>

(The other kids can still hear him, but fainter.)

And then he lifts his hand to touch the side of Trouble's face.
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Trouble smiles sadly.
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When Trouble doesn't run, the Andalite says:

<...Your mother... Tell me about your family, Trouble.>
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"Well, she believes in aliens," he says, grinning.

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The Andalite closes his eyes.

<Hide,> he says again. <They are coming.>
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"Can I—" says Trouble, putting his hand over the Andalite's hand on his face.

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<Yes. If you can do it quickly.>
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He nods.

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

Imagining himself as other people has always been easy.
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The Andalite droops, a little, sedated or tired or maybe just drained from being half-incinerated.

<Run. They mustn't catch you.>
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"Okay," Trouble whispers, his volume driven low by the softness of the mental voice.

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

Then he runs.
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The Andalite drops his hands. He waits.

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

The third ship is darker still.

It descends slowly, directly over the stack of concrete pipe sections where Trouble tried to take cover earlier. Just when it looks like it's about to hit the topmost pipe in the stack, there is a flash and a kind of screamy whoosh—TSEEEWWW—and the whole stack vaporizes. As it settles to the ground, its shape is finally visible, silhouetted against the pale gravel: a main shaft like an axe handle and two sweeping fixed wings like blades. Near the forward end, where the handle bulges into a triangular spearpoint, a door opens.
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The Andalite doesn't move. Maybe he can't.

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

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

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