Cayaldwin and Mhalir are working on trying to figure out an indefinitely-stable tether.

Leareth heads across the base to join them. As he walks, the accomplishment is properly sinking in, and by the time he reaches them he's beaming jubilantly about it. :Cayaldwin, Mhalir, I did it! First Andalite trial of demorphing nothlits. It seemed to work fine with no negative effects from the process itself, though having been trapped in another body for a long time means it is an adjustment. Also the power cost is much higher, probably because of body mass, I need to make a stronger generator. Relatedly I am very tired. Cayaldwin, would you mind holding onto Mhalir for tonight as well? If you prefer not to I suppose I can take him overnight before returning him: 

<He can sleep here, I don't mind.>

:Thank you. Anyway, I am very pleased about this! How is your research going?: 

<You should be very pleased about it! It's very impressive! We're making progress. I think the multiple-tethers problem might once we've solved it solve the bond-instability problem - if it's anchored in multiple places - it'll make it unsafe to jump while in morph but that's a pretty minor constraint ->

:Interesting - that makes sense, that multiple places would stabilize it. If you want me to test mock-ups of it, I can see if it is possible to add a magical tether to a different place on one of our worms: He frowns. :...Would that also make it unsafe to Gate while in morph? If so that would be inconvenient for Andalites who can only obtain Gifts at all when morphed: 

<Oh, it might.> He frowns. <I suspect there's some way around that -> He doesn't bother explaining, just lets the half-formed concept of how the planar tethering could work with jumps and Gates be there where Mhalir can see it and maybe firm it up -

Mhalir can't actually talk to anyone except Cayaldwin, but he chases after the incomplete thought.

<I see - the problem is that the construct-body is very briefly passing through, not z-space itself, but something a little like a normal-space pocket in z-space, though the space is an infinitesimally thin one for Gates - but one that nonetheless covers a great distance between points in z-space, pinched together. And then very suddenly the main construct-body is in a completely different location in both normal space and the nearest z-space point, which would tend to put great strain on one of the tethers. ...Do we actually know what it looks like when someone in standard morph crosses a Gate? Their normalspace pocket must either follow them, cutting through the pinched space as well, or end up very far away and have to 'catch up'. A stupid way around it might be having to bring a secondary construct-body with you while Gating or jumping, so that both tethers can be brought along through the pinched area in z-space, but surely we can do better than that...> 

<It follows them through. The early versions of morph weren't safe to jump in, but researchers about ten years ago figured it out - there was a nothlit stranded on a ship and he eventually committed suicide rather than have the ship out of action or forced to kill him, but there was a lot of interest in how to make sure it didn't happen again -> He can pull up a paper on how they did it, it seems relevant. <And yes, that occurred to me too, but it does seem inelegant ->

<If we can get a test prototype, we should see what happens if the two construct-bodies are moved rapidly in opposite directions by non-jump means, to get a sense of whether this has an effect on stability or on the power requirements for the tethers. If great distance and rapid movement are safe at all, then - I think the challenge is to spread out the strain on the second tether when Gating or jumping, somehow, so it is not instantaneous and it has time to lengthen rather than snap.> Mhalir is having a hard time picturing it, though, he doesn't quite have his head around it yet. <...Could the tether theoretically route through additional planes, the same way that Gate-routing lets Leareth do interplanetary Gates without the 'internal' distance between the points being intractable...?>

< - maybe. You'd have to have the morphing technology able to create it in the first place, and we don't know how to do the thing Leareth does, but it ought to be possible, I'd think...>

<I have an intuition that if there were three total construct-bodies, so that at any time two were stationary and only one was jumping or Gating, that would be a more stable arrangement? I am not sure though> 

He goes to the computer to start trying to model it.

He has forgotten to share any of this conversation with Leareth.

Leareth can guess why! It must feel so slow and kludgy to try to communicate in words to a third party when, internally, you can race ahead at the speed of thought. 

He watches Cayaldwin work for a bit, sort of fondly, and then slips off. Walks around the base for a bit, morphs again and sneaks a Farsight peek at the recently demorphed-from-bird Andalite to make sure he's getting a reasonable reception from the others.

The anecdote about the nothlit on the ship has him thinking. 

:Matirin?: he eventually reaches out. 

He has just finished catching up the Andalite formerly stuck as a bird. <Yes?>

:I was just thinking, there are other nothlits elsewhere, right? I...would like to try to fix them too: Pause. :Ideally before I risk my life with Mhalir. If I die and have to come back, I will not immediately have the magical skill to resume doing it: 

<There are thousands of them on our home planet. There are a few illnesses we cannot cure and the best medical advice is to nothlit yourself in a version of your body without the problem. There are a much fewer number, I think dozens, stuck in non-Andalite forms.>

:Right. I am guessing it would not really help to demorph the first group, they would just end up back in a version of their body with the illness? ...I am very curious which illnesses you cannot cure any other way, but that is a digression. I do want to help the others, and dozens is a tractable number:

<Probably something could be done for the others, but it'd be more like - detaching the morph setup and then giving them morph again in their new baseline body, and it's certainly less urgent. I can ask for the others to be gathered in one place so you can fix them.

To answer your other question, neurodegenerative disorders mostly. We have treatments that are reasonably effective but some cases resist treatment.>

:Mmm. Thank you: Leareth is suddenly so incredibly curious about how one could detach the morph pocket from a nothlit without...actually just killing them...presumably it helps that they're in a healthy version of their own body, rather than a bird or something, but the rabbits detached from their pockets didn't become different rabbits, they just went catatonic... :I do not mind Gating to the Andalite homeworld for this, if that is simplest: 

< I suspect it will be. Thank you.>

:You are welcome: Leareth sighs and goes back to the much less fun work of planning how to infiltrate the Yeerk high command as Alloran. 

Mhalir works on morph research with Cayaldwin. It took him a while to realize, earlier, why he always looked forward to this so much. Not just because it's important, although it is, or because it's interesting, although it's that too. But - he's happy, in the moments when he's in Cayaldwin's brain. Not uncomplicatedly happy, there's grief and pain and regret to be found there too, there's the fact that Cayaldwin is only ever happy for the briefest periods of distraction until he catches himself at it and stomps on it, and - Mhalir can't even tell him to stop that, because he understands the impulse. 

He never realized until now how little happiness he's had in the decades since Seerow's death. Certainly he was never happy after he took Alloran as a host, mostly for the obvious reasons, living in the brain of a miserable person who desperately wants to die and is constantly thinking how much they hate you isn't great for that. 

Eventually, when it's late but not unreasonably so and they've hit a good stopping point, he gives Cayaldwin the usual nudge about sleep. 

It's very annoying how Mhalir always wants to stop and sleep instead of working all night but he goes along with it. Heads over to the rest of the Andalite herd and reminds himself that he is NOT among friends, the only person who mattered is dead, and he is NOT safe and he is NOT okay. And sleeps.

In the morning they have time for a few more hours of math before Leareth turns up to drag Mhalir back to his political responsibilities. He goes uncomplainingly, of course, it's important. <We can catch up again in a few days> he assures Cayaldwin.