She's been pacing around mostly being so worried about Leareth. 

:I am doing that: she confirms. Leareth would, after all, if he were able to do it right now. :He is not considering betraying you. He - worried greatly that you had betrayed him, but thought that was less likely and made less sense than an internal coup, and he was very worried about Leareth, so he gambled on coming here. He is - mostly very very scared, right now: 

Matirin should not resent information that makes him feel bad for Mhalir, that would be dumb, he doesn't prefer to have less information. <Thank you.>

He goes and clears some people out of a conference room so Mhalir can have it. His apology and explanation is playing on television. The broadcaster feels that the aliens owe Earth an explanation of the overall war and security situation and a guarantee that the planet is not going to be blown up from orbit or something. Matirin winces. <I cleared out a room so you can use it as an office> he tells Mhalir. <Also Amanda may need to pet a quadruped in which case this can be arranged.>

Mhalir is really confused but poor Amanda has been having such a bad day. 

"Thank you," he tells Matirin.

<Amanda, do you want to pet a quadruped? Does that help?>

Amanda is not sure what he means by that! She would - definitely snuggle a cat, if they have cats here? She doesn't especially want to snuggle an Andalite because it'd be like hugging a chef who is in the middle of chopping things with a really big steak knife, except the really big steak knife is actually attached to his butt and swinging wildly and expressively at all times - the metaphor doesn't really hold but anyway Andalites are scary.

"She says she would appreciate petting a cat but finds Andalites frightening. I do not suppose you have cats here." 

<I can check if anyone has the morph. We have a Companion?>

He sends Amanda a mental image of a Companion, not that he's seen them in person but he knows what white horses look like approximately. <Apparently humans find them very snuggly. They are intelligent people as well> 

Uh, sure, she'll hug a Companion. Is this...what Andalites do for therapy. 

<...I had never heard of it before now but maybe? It is rather sweet of him to offer> 

Yfandes is now mobile enough to make her way over from the medical bay, and Van well enough that she feels comfortable leaving him for a bit, so she joins them for pets. They're really soothing for her too, honestly. 

Mhalir is watching the human news on the television and reading updates from his people, but is happy to otherwise let Amanda have the use of her body. 

Amanda gets to move her arm and pet Yfandes! It is  - in fact pretty soothing. Yfandes is fluffy and apparently an intelligent person who is just also a horse, which is fascinating, and also alien trauma therapy is pretty good compensation for alien-related trauma and she can stop trying not to think about whether she wants to stop doing this and whether she'd be allowed if so. She doesn't want to stop doing this she just wants them to always be wearing the shield jewelry.

<I would also like us to keep wearing the shield-talisman! It would be very reasonable of you to request a different Yeerk who is less of a target than I am, though, even if you wish to keep working with us. Which you do not have to. The Andalites are very firm on that> 

:Rough day?: Yfandes says to Amanda, sympathetically. :Someone tried to blow us up from orbit, so I sympathize: 

(Amanda can have her mouth if she wants to answer.) 

The Andalites are scary and feel like they have an agenda here and she thinks they're more like surrendering to the Americans than to the Soviets but she doesn't feel safer knowing they're hovering, not exactly.

And I do like you, she thinks at Mhalir. And it'll make you look bad, to the other Yeerks, if you're constantly shuffling hosts because they keep deciding they don't want to do this. 

"I'm - glad they failed at blowing you up from orbit," she tells Yfandes. "They shot us but they didn't know he was wearing magic invincibility jewelry."

:Present from from Leareth, huh? He's useful that way: She leans into being petted. :...Ooh, if you can get right behind my ears, it's itchy there: 

Marian eventually seeks out some Yfandes pets as well. Very briefly because she's stressed about leaving the medical bay for long. She's having a really frustrating day, although to be fair Leareth's day is probably worse. 

Visser 3 mostly ignores Amanda and Yfandes' conversation, uses their eyes to read and watch. Nothing else from the ship, still. ...Which he thinks might be evidence it's not what the Pool ship told him it was? Because if so, surely it would have noticed the Pool ship's hyperspace jump and tried to contact someone else. It's really confusing and hard to think about with so little information, though. 

<Visser> Matirin says about half an hour later. <If the Pool ship flees this system, as seems likely, where is the nearest Yeerk system it could arrive at.>

Sigh. "I have been worried about that. None that close - but, weeks' journey, not months." He gives a list of the Yeerk systems nearest Earth, and the forces at their disposal. 

He nods. <The Dome ship is not presently well equipped to pursue it through hyperspace, nor to stop it except through mutual destruction. I don't know if other options exist.>

"We have no other hyperspace-capable ships since the Blade ship was destroyed. I am not sure if Leareth's mages have any options here?" 

<Leareth is the one with the most creative Gate options. I think Gating to a ship he hasn't been to that is in hyperspace and moving quickly would test even him. ...I wonder if he could do it in concert with you if you were in his head, you have presumably been there many times.>

"I have, yes." He raises an eyebrow. "I - cannot imagine you would be pleased by the prospect of my entering his head. Also he is badly injured right now and cannot Gate anyway."