"Uh, sure, Tuesday's fine." Wow she is pretty sure a flight costs way less than that, even on very short notice. "I don't actually need to fly, though, I live a couple hours away so I can take the train in." 

"Oh! Great. All right. We'll see you on Tuesday. I have availability at noon?" People say that phrase as a question even though it's a statement; it is generally understood, he thinks, as an implicit question about whether the other person is already available at noon. Which she has just said that she is but he thinks it's an allowed conversational move anyway, and in fact politer than informing her they'll meet at noon even though that would save them an exchange.

"Yes, noon is fine. - Uh, where?" 

" - you know, we just had to change sites because of a bureaucratic partnership mixup, I can call you this evening with the address?"

"Oh, right, uh, that's fine." 

He hangs up and flops expressively on the desk. None of the other Andalites do that so it must be deliberate but it looks very human. "Should've thought to sort out the address first. Probably the hotel won't tell us the room until we pay for it?"

"You can pay over the phone with a credit card," Nayoki says. "I saw someone do it on TV. I am not sure if a debit card would also do, though. Maybe I should tell the bank I need a credit card as well." 

...All right, fine, maybe Nayoki gets something useful out of watching TV four candlemarks a day. 

"Why don't you try with the debit card and if it doesn't work we can get you a credit card, though probably not by tonight, which is when I said I'd call her back. I think for a credit card you might need a credit history but the one we gave you for the rental should do."

Someone found them the Yellow Pages for Vancouver, which is like a giant newspaper ad for all the businesses in the city. Nayoki makes a list of hotels and starts calling them to ask if she can reserve a room now over the phone and pay with her debit card. 

Uh, you generally cannot make remote purchases with a debit card because you have to enter your pin which you do not want to tell to strangers. 

If she doesn't have a credit card, is there any other way she can pay today without coming in person? Also do they have lots of rooms left unbooked for Tuesday? (If so then maybe she can get away with giving that address but not the exact room yet, they could have someone wait out front of the building to meet Marian, in Velgarth that would be the polite thing to do anyway.) 

They're not very booked. They don't have a way to pay today without a credit card or being there in person, though.

"Matirin, how risky do you think it would be to take the shuttle over today so we can book a room? It would probably be all right but it would be very awkward if we told her a place and then did not actually have that place." 

"I think the risk is low. As far as we know the Yeerks can't detect the shuttles."

"I think we should do that." 

Leareth doesn't like it at all, but he can't think of a way to Gate in more safely, and there is a tradeoff between security and actually accomplishing things. 

"We should still bring it down outside the city," he says. "There is still enough time left for Nayoki to obtain a car and drive a candlemark." 

"That makes sense." 

So a shuttle can take Nayoki and a pilot to about fifty miles outside Vancouver, where they can rent a car and drive the rest of the way to book a hotel room. "You can just book it from now through Tuesday if that's less complicated, we're not short on money."

Nayoki isn't sure which of those is more or less complicated, but if she books it the whole time she can go start putting wards on it and they won't have to rush to do all of that before noon - in fact, then she can Gate Leareth directly there on Tuesday, behind shields, and not risk the shuttle a second time. So she does that. 

<Next operation is seizing a Yeerk for experimentation. Are your people close on being ready for that - it'll affect what other risks are acceptable ones ->

"I think we are ready, but need a specific plan and specific Yeerk to grab. My thought was to arrange for some sort of accident where the Yeerk body would not be expected to be found. Perhaps a motor vehicle accident where the car catches fire. If we manage to locate a Yeerk traveling on one of the more remote roads, we could cause them to crash quite easily with some use of magic, and car crashes are not very suspicious. I have Fetchers who can manage a human body weight, they could grab the human - and probably replace them with a cadaver, so there are remains to be found, bones and such often do not burn all the way. And then we could have a mage do a compulsion on the Yeerk and a Healer to keep the human unconscious while we transport them out, and I think the Yeerks would not pursue an investigation very far." 

Nod. <I think we should be prepared to move on that as soon as a Yeerk is spotted on a remote road. We can do very convincing corpses using morph technology if we have access to the person in advance but in this case I do not know that it is worthwhile to wait for that.>

"It seems risky to attempt to morph-acquire them in advance, but for a remote road they would not be spotted for some time so there would be an interval. How long does it take? We should steal a cadaver from a hospital or medical lab anyway, as a backup."

Slight sigh. "I want to send more people to Washington, Farseers and Thoughtsensers in particular, and station mage and Healer pairs to camp beside remote roads, so we do not have to use the shuttle to bring someone into urgently when the occasion arises. The group there already has a motel room with temporary shields while they try to rent longer term accommodations, so we can use Gates for transport. They could also do temporary Gate-shielding at their camp locations, which would allow them to transport the captured Yeerk out themselves and possibly swap for a morphed body." 

<Acquiring a template for a morph takes about a minute, in physical contact with the acquisition target. In this case the process would be more inconvenient; we would have the Andalite with a Yeerk morph infest an animal, grant the animal morphing abilities, acquire the body in animal form, morph human, take the Yeerk out, and kill the animal in the target form.>

"That does sound rather convoluted. How long does it take to give a body morph abilities?"