- demorph, and start rubbing her eyes.

"Gonna morph Robin for a sec," Trouble sighs, and he does that.

"They don't know shit," says Trouble. "They put her in me 'cause she fucked something up and Visser Three decided to make her sit through what Reggie does to me, as punishment. I'm not sure how much she knows, but she hasn't said a word to anybody."

"And she didn't tell any other Yeerks - anything. She didn't say that - that you can morph, that you've met an Andalite, that you've seen Visser Three, that - anything. Is she a she? I hadn't been assuming Yeerks had genders..."

"Well, I've seen Visser Three again now. But no, nothing, she hasn't said a word. I mean, nobody's looking to her to spy on me, you know? And - I don't know, she feels like a she to me."

"...It hasn't been my favourite couple of days," he says. "But I'm - I'll be fine. Are you okay?"

"I'll live." She swallows. "I don't know what to do with her - Renée could be home any minute."

"...Me neither," says Trouble. "I'd rather not kill her, but hell, even if we do, where do we stash the body? And if we don't, what do we do with her instead?"

"She's little, I don't think body-stashing is a huge issue, bury her in someone's backyard," shrugs Bella. "If she - we also - you can't go home, not without her."

"...yeah," he says. "Unless - I don't know. Her only job was to do whatever Reggie tells her and not break cover the rest of the time. I'd be screwed when her feeding cycle came up - she's due tomorrow evening - but I could fake it, until then, it wouldn't be hard. And if I'm gonna disappear, I shouldn't disappear out of your house if we can avoid it, right?"

"Right. If you're gonna disappear, you should ask a gossipy acquaintance for fifty bucks and be seen at the bus station."

"And they'll figure Aspret picked starving over another day of Reggie. Which I wouldn't blame her for. Actually I'm pretty sure somebody was taking bets on that when they hauled us out of the pool."

"Is there a way to talk to her when she's like this? And - let's go down to the basement at least -" She puts the hammer back where it belongs, checks the floor for blood, there isn't any. "Renée won't notice the mixing bowl gone, we're all going to Olive Garden tonight." She picks up Aspret's bowl.

"Well... somebody could morph and thought-speak to her," he says. "But she couldn't talk back."

"How do they even communicate, in-pool?" Down to the basement they go.

Bella puts the bowl in a box and the box on a shelf, accessible in a hurry but not obtrusive. "I suppose we could tell her to swim counterclockwise for no and clockwise for yes."

"Or somebody could morph her," says Trouble.

"That won't teach us her native language," Bella says. "I mean, we may as well acquire her - we'll call the others, we can meet after the Olive Garden trip when Renée's out at the movies - but I don't think it would let us understand whatever sounds or other communications she can emit right now."

"Sure, but it'd give us a better handle on her body language," says Trouble. "Or it'd give me one, if I did it."

"Be my guest," says Bella. "And you can see how comfy the water is, if it's liable to give her trouble if we leave her there for a while."