"All right," he says, leaning against the counter and watching her curiously. "Go for it."

Bella has a list, in her cipher in her notebook. "We know Yeerks acquire skills their hosts have - Aspret was baking, Esclan could drive, etcetera - and can crib personality cues pretty effectively, but it's not clear how well they can copy strictly creative abilities - could one in Robin write a song if she wasn't cooperating on any level, for example?"

"...I don't actually know," he says. "Huh. Aspret never tried anything like that."

"And didn't know anyone who did, and Yeerks occupying novelists or painters or whatever?"

"Okay, so I guess that's a 'no idea'... I think your Yeerk-distracting abilities have to be off the charts or they'd behave differently about infestations than they seem to, but did she know how good the baseline is?"

"Host rebellion is a thing but it's more a physical thing than a mental thing. She hadn't heard of anybody ever doing what I did. Mostly they can just take what they want."

"A physical thing like...?"

"Like, if the host is really, really motivated, they can interfere with the Yeerk's control of their body, maybe even take it back for a second. Or parts of it. But distracting them, like I did, keeping them away from something you don't want them to know - nobody's ever done that before."

"Interesting." (Write, write.) "I wonder if there's any other good strategies for fucking with them. Anything sufficiently generalized could just be thoughtspoken to a large crowd of hosts and create chaos, that could be useful."

"Yeah, like what? And you'd better test whatever you come up with before you go yelling it to a bunch of people."

"Yes, the testing part would be the problem."

"Yeah?"

"What are you getting at? Have you and Ethan and Robin been having Yeerk-related entertainments and not sharing your scientific results?"

He snorts. "No. But I would. I bet you'd have a harder time convincing Ethan or Robin to do it for science."

"What would be their issue with doing science simultaneously?"

Trouble shrugs. "It's not like they've done it. I just think they'd have other things on their minds if they did. Me, I wouldn't care."

"Indifferently scientific Yeerking. Huh."

"Mm?"

"If Robin and Ethan won't do science and you will, that leaves a gap in the necessary participants that has to be filled with me, Andi, Charlie, or Ax - and realistically that means me. Trying to decide if I even have a sufficiently well-defined test to run."

"Yeah," he says, "'cause I'd definitely rather it be you."

"Well, that and I don't think Andi or Charlie would be keen or motivated by science, and Ax has no Yeerk form and probably couldn't be induced to acquire, let alone use, one if his life depended on it, but yes. That."

"...You know I'm not motivated by science, right?"

"Had an inkling. What are you motivated by?"