"- so as to hijack the Syria pool's communications with the orbiters, and we advertised a forthcoming cure for cancer, which is just morph. If you exceed the time limit you're stuck in whatever you morphed, but 'whatever you morphed' can be 'a healthier younger only slightly cosmetically different version of yourself'. The Yeerks hung out in orbit. They had some members of the cousin strain up there and bred them and waited until they were big enough to take hosts, and then obliterated the southeastern United States, Cuba, and a number of Caribbean islands -"

Something personally horrible there too, somebody she liked died.

"- blamed the Andalites to confuse public opinion, and used the distraction to land radiation-resistant Yeerks in Goa, India and begin the slow stealth infestation plan again."

"I'm sorry." 

Something horrible - are we sure she's not -

She... seems like a Bell to me? If a Yeerk got her it un-got her I think it depends how good they are impersonating people.

If you think you'd prefer I check under the circumstances I will, if you think you'd prefer I not -

Ask her what the protocol for checking people is.

"How do you check if someone's Yeerked -"

"An MRI will do it and there's a more portable faster version in the works. Morphing a Yeerk and trying to enter the person will fail if they're already occupied. Watching them for three days will do it. The biofilter will do it, if and only if the host is not morphed; if they are the Yeerk folds away with the rest of their original body and isn't present on the scan. There is a species called the Leerans who can read thoughts; morphing a Leeran allows the straightforward detection of an extra mind."

We could ask Boots in, I bet she could do it without seeing anything else. Or maybe daeva can conjure by 'the Yeerk in someone's head'.

We'd need an example of someone with a Yeerk in their head to tell if they can.

"So they attempted a stealth infestation again?"

"Yes. ...Are you having telepathic conversations? It's not considered rude here or anything, just mildly surprising that thoughtspeak works for you."

"Elves don't have thoughtspeak but we have something that must be functionally similar."

"Huh. Okay. So they attempted a stealth invasion of India and also announced to the Andalites that they wanted the morph tech. They had exactly one Andalite and therefore morph-capable host, a fellow named Alloran hosting a Yeerk ranked Visser Three with lower numbers being higher ranking; Visser Three was heading the Earth project - and they wanted more morphers. They emphatically did not want an Earthful of humans friendly to Andalites and impossible to use as hosts for Yeerks, and had the ability to destroy the planet, outright. The Andalites brought a crippled morph box - it would allow exactly one morph, sufficient for curing cancer but only a modest combat asset - and rendezvoused with the Yeerks ten days' FTL travel from here. They attempted to take over the larger ship, and provided enough distraction to allow its secret Resistance second-in-command officer to assume command of the vessel and arrange to cooperate with the Andalites. She destroyed the medium-sized ship, reshuffled the crew until it was only loyal Resistance Yeerks who had hosts, and returned to Earth, where she announced her secession from the Yeerk Empire and established the sovereign state now known as Tide."

Notes notes notes. "Does she have a name?"

"Ristrell. Title is 'Sovereign'."

"And is controlling a willing party?"

"...yes. Josefa is willing."

That should be enough for Cam to test whether he can conjure by 'the Yeerk in this person's head'. He adds it to the notes with a request to please try it. "That sounds like pretty much the world as we encountered it; did that end it?"

"More Andalites showed up after a bit. There are still some of them around in case the Yeerk Empire sends more ships, and occasionally there's tourism - they come for the food, mostly, Andalites don't have a sense of taste and go wild for human food. Matirin was reassigned; we haven't been told where as a matter of military classification; but maybe you can find him with your magic and 'magical alternate universe version of Matirin' seems like a pretty good reason to cut through military classification to me. That's the state of things now."

She knows precisely where he is and doesn't like it and has to pretend that's what he told her.

Yep, I caught that. I think she's clear. Well, at least, I think she is a standard Bell; can't rule out slug-in-head yet.

Yeah, agreed. Or maybe the slug is the Bell and the host just looks like a Bell for the same reason Matirin's morph looks like you, namely 'alts: the fuck'.

Can't see a non-evil Bell doing that - maybe with a consenting host?