She will see someone who looks a lot like Matirin except somehow even prettier, and a woman with mountain-goat horns and jet-black wings who is piling up computer chips as books appear on a bar. He looks up. " - oh, hello -"

"What's all this then?"

"Welcome to Milliways! It's an interdimensional bar - there are more dimensions than any known societies have come up with numbers for - and you look rather like some people who're already here." Ambela, new Bell -

"Is that so. You look familiar too, do you also turn into a blue centaur alien when you're off the clock?"

Coming! What's this one like?

Knows me as a blue centaur alien, apparently! Human, looks like you, maybe early twenties? I think she might have recently had an unpleasant time of it... "I can't say I do. Maitimo, nice to meet you."

"Bella. Should I assume you also want the names of everyone else I've ever met or is that not how this works?"

"That is absolutely how this works but if you know a me we will just give him the comprehensive list of everyone any of us knows and then he will reciprocate and then the world will be back in equilibrium. The list has several billion people at this point, I don't know anything about blue centaur aliens but he might need a memory aid of some kind."

"He's got one."

"Oh good. When Cam come downstairs we can send a little probe to go fetch him assuming he's not in shouting distance of the door - while the door is closed time is paused in your world, if you still have mortality and wars and so on you may want to close it until we're all set to end that -"

"There was a war. We won. It's quiet now. Mortality's a thing, though, planet is radioactive. He's out of both shouting and thoughtspeak distance, unfortunately."

"Mortality we can fix. If you're the standard kind of human born to other humans with no magic - what's thoughtspeak? - we can fix it easily, even."

"Gosh, you know how to beat blue centaur aliens for excitingness, don't'cha." She shuts the door.

"We pooled lotsa magic until we could just fix everything. That's what this operation is -" gesturing at the books - "sorting through the multiverse to find places in need so we can go save them. We are very bottlenecked on interdimensional teleporters and a little bottlenecked on mortality fixes but we'll get there. Bar, is this a Bell -"

Bella is a Bell.

And Mirelótë appears. "Hi! I'm Mirelótë Ambela."

"But I am-Bella. ...Is this a translation effect or what, should I avoid puns."

"It's surprisingly pun-friendly for a translation effect!"

"We have a writeup now, resources we've got and what we are doing with them. Has your world invented electricity -"

"Is this a common deficit? Yes, we have electricity and we're working on plagiarizing faster than light travel."

"Those are the same kind of pants Cam wears," Ambela says. "I bet they're from the same time and sort of Earth, or close to."

"Denim. Gotta love it."

"Plagiarizing faster-than-light travel will go faster with demons and ten of my dad." Resource writeup that assumes knowledge of what computers are!

"Great. Ten of your dad. I'mma delegate that to Cayaldwin."

"Uh, what did -"

"It's not like we met or anything but the last thing he did before he died was misdirect a bunch of people who were coming to defend my planet from alien invasion into a black hole and get most of them killed. So."

"- that is not at all in character, how sure are you -"

"Uh, Matirin, that being the you, let his ambiguous-boyfriend-he-won't-tell-the-Internet-either-way brain-slug him to prove that he wasn't in on it, pretty sure. The brain slugs being the alien invasion. Maybe your dad isn't a his dad, I dunno, I'm new here."

"So far I only come with the one dad. Brain-slug him?"

"So there's these brain slugs called Yeerks, they do, not technically mind control I guess but they read all your memories and can impersonate you and stuff. Major blue centaur alien weapon is shapeshifting, so we can turn into Yeerks and occasionally that's worth the ick."

"Well that's horrifying, let's not tell Kib."

"Who's Kib?"

"Kib is a Bell, that's us - not the same face, there's a few faces and he's a boy - who spent awhile in captivity with an evil god and minions thereof reading his memories and impersonating most of his loved ones to him in between all the torture. He shouldn't be told anything that looks like a setup, because he can verify his husband's identity and that his husband has not been tortured yet..."

"Yeesh."

"That particular evil god is dead. Are the brain-slugs all handled -"

"Not all of them, but the ones on Earth yeah."

"Are they brainslugging anywhere else?"

"Yeah."

"Well. Door's shut. Probably worth grabbing the local alts if they're grabbable but then we'll come up with a plan." 

"If I'm here for long I'll want my sister."

"The rest of us are only children."

"...that's, uh, weird. I have a twin. Andi."

"By all means grab her too, then - we can get you a fairy, if they're in the same solar system it'll be a really fast trip -"

"Oh, Andi's not far, thoughtspeak distance. Do explain fairies and all the other everything."

Down comes Cam. "Fairies are like me only with different magic powers and less snazzy accessory limbs. Hi, I'm Cam, this is Timothy."

"Hi! It's all in the file, we finally got around to making a file."

"Apparently we come in blue centaur alien."

"- you know what, that works, I can see that."

"I bet you're a very fetching blue centaur alien."

"The entire Internet has a crush on him but mostly because his human morph is pretty."

"He should compare notes with Minor - Minor's my little brother who decided 'beloved internet presence' was the way to accomplish various political goals -"

"Really? Uh, which in birth order is - I can't quite see it for any of them -"

"Fifth."

"Is that consistent too, I really can't see Cayaldwin getting a YouTube to be beloved on."

"There's a little bit of variance by species, maybe blue centaur alien versions of us are more - whatever makes my father a mass murderer and Curufinwë less inclined to vlogging -"

"I think the extent of Minor's commitment to vlogging was that you told him to do it and then the GCP told him to stop it. If Matirin asked Cayaldwin to establish himself on YouTube for some reason and then someone he really resented tried to shut him up?"

"Then maybe he'd record engineering lectures? 'Beloved' is a stretch."

"I am excited to meet our blue centaur alien selves."

"I bet that would be fun to watch, pity they're a ways off."

"From how you described things I bet they will not object to our showing up with a brainslug handling plan in place instead of letting more time elapse to go fetch them."

"Yup."

He watches tensely while the new Bell reads the description of everybody and current projects and resources, even though she's hardly going to interrogate Cam.

She doesn't interrogate Cam. She reads and rents a room and has a few questions and holds the door for her sister.

Who comes in with a backpack full of stuff. "Wow. Legit human and close-enough Matirins."

"They're gay."

"Aww - well I guess that answers the eternal question of the comments section - does that mean him and Finleran were after all -"

"Presumably."

"All of us so far, and the girl ones are lesbians. Bells vary."

"I'm straight, am I disappointing anybody?"

"Yeah, Miranda's bestie."

"Poor Miranda's bestie."

"At the rate new Bells are dropping in I bet a compatible one will turn up eventually."

"Go stash our stuff," Bella tells Andi, handing her a room key. "I'm gonna go flying, enjoy things not being on fire."

"Aww, what if I wanna fly?"

"You flew this morning! You demorphed and remorphed in midair to show off and so you wouldn't have to land!"

"Nyeh," says Andi, sticking out her tongue, and she trots up the stairs.

And Bella goes out flying.

She thoughtspeaks Timothy, We're really curious if you'd wind up looking like Matirin in Andalite morph by coincidence like how he looks like you - there's no reason he should, he just mixed up some random humans. Andi's got the morph box in our room and I told her I'd send you. You can have Cam make you DNA samples later but I don't want him just copying Matirin's out of the box somehow, it'd fudge the experiment, so just go back for them after.

I don't think conjuration works that way but I'd be happy to get the shapeshifting, what's her room?

Well, like, he could make 'an Andalite', right? And it would have some genome, and I don't know how it picks if he's not aiming, so I want to minimize causal entanglement with existing ones. 2011.

"I am going to go become a shapeshifting wizard," he tells Cam, and kisses him.

"I think Niari might hate me," he says, drafting an email to explain the new world. "At least this one isn't an information security hazard - Cam, can you get the door -"

"Course." He gets the door.

In room 2011 Andi lets Timothy in and shuts the door behind him and stuns him with a shredder and twists open a Thermos and puts it to his ear.

He wakes up. 

He can't move. 

"No complications," his mouth says. "...not with this host, anyway, I hope Antren knows what she's doing -"

Shrug. "Seems to."

She morphs for thoughtspeak, then opens the window.

In flies an owl.

Which demorphs. "So, my assessment was that the Elves would spontaneously die if infested, does that accord with your guess?"

" - they're not an acceptable host species, I think they'd be dead within a week, but I don't think spontaneously, we would have a little room to work in. Your bigger problem is the telepath ones, my host's shouting at them right now and range is funny in Milliways but we're not necessarily in the clear - there're - six here now and two on Ganymede and we need them dead before we can do anything else -"

"Right. What's the best way to do that without being noticed?"

"Summon a daeva, Imperius or infest them - or both - have them do it -"

"Can you in fact use your host's magic?"

"Lumos." The wand lights up. 

"Marvelous. Is there a specific daeva who'd be good for the purpose?"

"He knows a demon whose Imperiused presence wouldn't be remarkable."

"Right. Kestil, you can do the honors, I want to know if we can be daeva too."

"That's a nice way to put how expendable I am."

"When you persist in the sister act away from witnesses you make it look like you need practice. I can replace you with someone who does not need practice."

Sigh. "Yes Sub-Visser. Orik can you do most of the circle since you've seen it done?"

He starts writing it out. "There's no particular correspondence between the amount of time passing here and the amount of time passing downstairs but if it's been a few hours downstairs Cam will probably come looking for my host and I cannot think of any avenue to infest Cam if daeva are not vulnerable natively."

"You should render your host morph-capable anyway; it'll explain your presence. You can't think of anything?"

"Can't persuade him straight, could roll him back a ways and persuade him from there but he's not vulnerable to Hazel's mind-affecting magic and not expected to be vulnerable to amnestic drugs either - an instance of the Arda pseudodeities Melkor or Sauron could do it but we're not especially positioned either to get to them or to negotiate with them - greenmage maybe but securing access to Godspring's going to be challenging - would you prefer I justify these points, sub-Visser -" Circle. He hands the pen off to Kestil.

"That suffices." She gestures.

Kestil completes the circle.

Ister appears.

"Hi! I have another project, want to go under for it?"

Beam. "Yeah."

"The proposed deal is a few hours of work in exchange for spending same under the Imperius curse, summoner, you have to affirm it -"

"Yeah, I affirm that."

"Imperio."

Kestil proffers the Thermos.

"Checking first if it's possible involuntarily -" he'd like Ister to hold it to his ear but not do anything else -

Failure.

Sigh. "Now obliging him to try to allow the Yeerk passage -"

Success! "This is weird, take the spell off," he says.

"You think you can hold him without?"

"Yeah."

"That technically breaks the deal between Ister and Kestil, I don't know if you could renegotiate for him, I can make him renegotiate and then remove it?"

"Yeah okay."

He'd like Ister to agree to do whatever they want indefinitely in exchange for the honor of being a host to a Yeerk.

Ister, being under the Imperius, says, "Yes," shorty followed by "that was him not me we're good."

"I have removed the spell. Do you require guidance on efficient demonic forensics -"

"Yeah, Ister doesn't know how."

"There are six soul Elves presently in Milliways. For each - I'll give you names - you're going to conjure a scale model of the Elf and their immediate surroundings, scaled so the Elf is a couple inches tall, made of plastic. Start with Mingling, the alt of my host -"

And Ister conjures.

Mingling's with his parents in their little house. Another soul Elf who's been taking Ganymede shifts is out among a bunch of the chip Elves, singing. Midnight is in Fredrick's room and Findekáno is in his.

" - my recommendation, sub-Visser, is that you kill the ones in their rooms and in the house, infest the human present in that room - he's another wizard - and wait to see if the one among the chip Elves leaves - if she does not, perhaps take one of my Elf alts and have him order her somewhere without witnesses. For Ganymede, we can Imperius a fairy, send them to pick the ones there up, kill them on the return trip. Doing that is probably preferable to waiting for them to return of their own accord and walk into the bar at an unpredictable moment - my host doesn't know how they're scheduled -"

"I accept your recommendation. Inplen, can you carry the first segment out without being detected?"

"Yeah, host's busy being way too into this, he won't yell."

"Go."

Inplen picks up the thermos and goes.

"One of my host's alts is at this moment writing Revelation authorities to inform them of the existence of your world, it may be too late to stop him but if it's not it might be worth preventing, should you wish in the future to operate in Revelation. The Revelation authorities are also a potential avenue to neutralize Cam since infesting him seems likely to be intractable."

"If it is not too late to stop him how can you best do that?"

"Go downstairs and request the door to some other world, whichever we have the most plausible reason to urgently visit, internet access is enabled by keeping the door open to Revelation. Alternately I could ask Cam to do something which would be impossible while holding the door but he is likely to find that unusual behavior when there is a message to urgently send. Tell the Elf that I'd appreciate it if he looked in on Andi. If I am wrong and this does prompt spontaneous death Ister can make a fork from before we infested him."

"I can ask to consult on how my world is presented, and you can use that opportunity to distract Cam."

"I expect that to be unremarkable."

"Kestil, for the time being your job is to park here and assume anyone uninfested who comes by should be stunned and infested; if in doubt thoughtspeak me."

"And then once the immediate danger is past we find out what happens if I die?"

"If you die gloriously for the advance of imperial knowledge and possibly become a considerably more valuable asset, yes."

"Yes sub-Visser."

Downstairs they go. His alt is still composing his message, not especially hurriedly.

"Hey um if you're describing my world as a radioactive hellpit full of brain slugs I maybe have feelings about that, can I look over your shoulder before you go telling everybody?"

"I want to consult you for accuracy before I contact them anyway, but the relevant features for them are 'are there new capabilities they can expect daeva to start manifesting' and 'are wait times going to get even worse', the radiation hasn't even come up. Do you have a chiplocked computer yet -"

"No, uh, and no idea how it'll interact with morphing, like it wouldn't kill me 'cause morphing's real good about that but I would wanna check with Cayaldwin to be sure it wouldn't extrude out my nose next time I turn into a bug or something."

"Makes sense." He tilts his towards her. "Here's where we're at -"

"I'm a shapeshifter," he says brightly to Cam. "Want to be the test subject on whether daeva too can be shapeshifters -"

"I can't say 'test subject' is my favorite job description," says Cam. "You're not worried about your chip extruding from your nose?"

"I can't say I see myself turning into bugs much at all, really. New Bell's curious if my default Andalite form looks like Matirin, because his default human one looks like me, want to make me Andalite skin or something to acquire -"

"Yeah, sure. Here?"

"Morphing involves nudity, this would get me arrested. Our room?"

"Gosh, nudity." Upstairs.

"I shall insist you turn around and cover your eyes."

"I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise. You know, nudity to us human-psychology people is as serious as unbraided hair is to Elves!"

"And I hear Elves take that hair very very seriously! ...awww, handing out morph in Hell is going to ruin the market for Polyjuice, isn't it." Their room. He morphs Andalite. 

(The host is just barely collected enough to marvel at being an Andalite. Orik is utterly delighted. The senses are marvelous.)

He wags his tail. <Ooooh.>

Cam snaps a picture. "I probably can't tell Andalites apart but maybe new Bell has picked it up. I wouldn't risk morphing chip Elf if I were you, might be weird or make you forkable or both. You like having a tail?"

<Not with a knife on the end, if there were destructible people around I'd be terrified of slicing them up. I assume when I am a blue centaur thing I know what to do with it. But tails are very expressive.> He demorphs. Now he is a naked human. 

(Please don't, Timothy says. Doesn't affect any of your strategic goals, can say morphing leaves you feeling vaguely out of sorts, and it'll make him significantly angrier at you if you and your allies are unlucky -)

(Trying to figure out what you can get away with?)

(You can probably answer that better than I can. Just. Please.)

Naked human kisses Cam.

Kisses are so great! "If you ever want a tail for keeps you know where to get one."

"I would never dream of sourcing my tails anywhere else." He reaches down to trace Cam's.

It winds around his hand. Cam has pants, why does he have pants. Now he still technically has pants but they are over there instead.

What an improvement! 

Meanwhile:

"I don't remember all the details about Leerans, I could go get my notes - you could come along, Andi will have better perspectives on a few things."

"Sure."

Upstairs.

Zap.

Chip Elves don't spontaneously die, though Lisrat 118 thinks they probably won't last that long. He emails the remaining soul Elf asking her to drop by 2011 at her convenience for a magic interactions test. 

"You need Cam and Minor and Amriac out of the way and then you can probably stop the worlds where the rest of their personnel are located and proceed without interference everywhere else in the multiverse."

"Orik can probably get Minor, although he said Cam would be more difficult. Should we wait for him to discuss Amriac or do you have an angle on her?"

"I do not. Where's he -"

"Distracting Cam."

"If we can't infest Cam we can probably arrange for him to be summoned gagged to a world we are subsequently pausing."

"Oh?"

"Ganymede's wanted to arrest him for a while, I would just need to manufacture some non-conjurable complaint, tell them we were wrong to think we could contain him and are dismissing him. Or we could try to arrange our own summons, drop him in the ocean, but that requires more direct action on our part and does not work if he's already suspicious - relatedly, any moment one of them could notice that conjuring for things written by the people known to them does not turn up things they have just seen written by those people -"

"I believe dismissing him at all will arouse some suspicion."

"So arrange for six hundred circles, warn Ganymede that we learned he's been Imperiusing most of the people in contact with him - hopefully they won't even give him a trial -"

"Yes, he's already been tried and sentenced, they might view themselves as simply taking over his sentence under a different protocol."

"I will encourage them to see it that way."

She nods. "My understanding is that you will need to avoid the redmages - infesting them isn't even a viable option, although Imperiusing them may be. I believe I can get Kestil into Miranda for training data and from there if she proves to turn into a daeva get Minor."

"The redmages are our only means of contact with Godspring - oh, no, there's also their servant, though they'll notice if we take her."

"They don't seem likely to have any protective factors against the Imperius."

"Timothy couldn't cast it on more than a few people or maintain it while asleep, don't consider it a scalable resource, but to force the door occasionally it should suffice."

"And they have nothing to prevent us from keeping them under house arrest otherwise once we have more people." She counts the Yeerks remaining in the thermos. "Might need to make another trip."

"Should be possible to clear the room for you."

"Good. Is there anything we should discuss before I find Miranda?"

"No, sub-Visser."

"Good."

She finds Miranda and stuns her and replaces Andi's Yeerk so Kestil can go check out Miranda, then emerge, be replaced with Passan instead, and be sacrificed gloriously to advance the knowledge of the empire. Kestil is then summoned as an angel successfully, given morph, given Miranda's form, and goes looking for Minor with the sub-Visser in tow.

"Hi Minor!" says Kestil. "Did you hear about the new me yet?"

"Hi!" says Antren.

"Oh, hi, new Bell! I didn't hear." He puts down a physics textbook. "Picked a nickname -"

"Nah, I'm still thinking about it. Uh, weird question."

"Really weird," says Kestil.

"Hmmm?"

"So like new Bell's world has these aliens that go in people's ears and can move them around and imitate them?" says Kestil. "And it might be important to know if they work on daeva, and if they work on daeva whether they can use their powers. Buuuut there's probably no convincing Cam to try it."

"But I can hand out shapeshifting scientific-mumbo-jumbo-technically-not-magic," says Antren. "So now Miranda can shapeshift into a brain alien, if you can tolerate just checking -"

"Whether they can use daeva powers - ugh. It just moves you around -"

"And kind of muscle memory type stuff, it's enough to put Cam way off it but it's not that big a deal, we're just kinda as a template all," handwave.

"- yeah, that's okay if it's Miranda." 

"Fair warning morphing is super gross," says Antren.

"And so are brain aliens but please don't just leave me on the floor they're aquatic," says Kestil, and she demorphs.

He does not leave Miranda-as-super-gross-brain-alien on the floor. He holds her to his ear and lets her in.

After a minute - so does that mean you can't use the powers -

- I'm not actually Miranda and you're hilariously gullible and I can use the powers fine, we already checked that -

- you should really hope, Minor says after a minute, the Elves are the ones to stop you because Timothy will learn the Cruciatus and then torture you all to death and I don't even think Cam'll leave him for it.

We already have that one. 

Something'll go wrong and then you won't and then he will super definitely no question torture you to death - also I no longer consider DNA part of my body - or my wings - or my hair -

"- uh," she says out loud.

"Uh?"

"The daeva thing is like - the parts of them which they consider parts of themself are indestructible? But he controls the body plan, I don't -" the wings drop off -

"Can you or can you not come up with an explanation for that?"

"For going without the wings, sure, if he successfully decides his left leg isn't part of his body -"

"I see. How does it affect this calculus that we do in fact have Miranda."

" - uh, doesn't help like you'd expect, he will be very bothered by it if we hurt her or make him do it but I do not think it'd deter him from ceasing to have legs if he can pull it off -"

"We could let her go. Turn her loose in Hazel. The default option is that she regains consciousness with Passan in place. I'm not even being particularly nasty to this one and she's scarcely coherent; it wouldn't take much creativity to leave nothing left of Miranda to congratulate him on his game theory."

"- that he's thinking about."

"While he thinks stash him neck-deep in some plausible research project, why don't you, and if confronted say he meant to get around to sizing up the wings but got distracted."

"Sure.

- ah, doesn't think we could verify it, would go for it if we could but mostly because he thinks Miranda free is more of an asset than trying to explain leglessness away is a liability -"

"Do you think you could let him conjure for her whereabouts without letting him do anything extraneous?"

" - yeah, same as moving one finger."

"Does that suffice to verify our cooperation? We don't need Miranda in particular for anything."

"- there are circumstances under which he'd go back to trying the leg thing, depends what you want to use him for once everything's under control, but it suffices for the moment -"

"Good. I'll have her turned out of the door as soon as we have coverage of the main bar, then."

The demon is sufficiently conflicted about his body plan that no hair or limbs start falling off.

He writes the GCP - "you were right. Has come to our attention that Swan has used the Imperius on nearly everyone who has come into contact with him since arrest, believe he modified his bone structure to qualify as a wand. Can't safely contain him. Will dismiss him, wanted you to have advance notice." 

It goes in the day's conjured packets; he can hardly ask Cam for the door.

As soon as his summoner is told to dismiss him he's back in Hell with no idea what happened and there are so many circles -

Now you pause everything, Timothy observes, staring searchingly at the place where Cam is gone -

                Yeah.

If -

               I know what you want to offer, I've been listening to you lay it out in your head. 

It's not a very complicated offer. If he'd been less distracted it'd be more persuasive, maybe. If he had answers to more questions about Yeerks it definitely would, but he's going off guesswork. He asks the questions anyway, though they usually aren't answered: do most Yeerks have hosts? If all Yeerks had hosts, what would happen? What part of this do you enjoy -

And then, the offer: if you let me prevent them from pausing our worlds, I will make sure you get everything you can possibly have without doing this to people. And if you don't, and I am ever presented with a chance - I have feelings about human extinction. It's worse than just the failure of human expansion. If I had to gamble double-or-nothing I wouldn't.

               Even if you win I'm not sure the Elves would let you carry out a genocide that you committed to for reasons of game theory.

They've never actually stopped me, you know. No one really approved when I broke in and threatened to kill two people, but that's all they did, disapprove. You can be sure of me. If the opportunity ever, ever presents itself you can be entirely sure that I mean this and I will do whatever it takes to achieve it. I will find every Yeerk planet and hole them if there isn't a better way, destruction is easy and you know I'd do it -

               You're not going to get a chance.

No personal risk, and maybe you save yourself and save your people. 

                Some personal risk, what if they do forensics and learn I drew a circle -

I draw it. With a light projector. Problem solved. 

                Let me think, he says, and dresses Timothy and goes downstairs.

The Yeerks pause the running worlds, and place a stunned Miranda in a paused Hazel, and Imperius Amriac into considering herself paid for her music and agreeing to be dismissed, and corral the chip Elves.

Chip Elves suicide if they get a chance, and don't last very long even if they can't. They have to keep the wizards unconscious while their Yeerks feed lest they do accidental magic somehow, but they're otherwise dramatically more useful hosts..

He teaches Fredrick's Yeerk the Imperius; he teaches Michael's Yeerk the Imperius. He teaches his parents' Yeerks. Theodore's in Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park is paused. Aaron and Minor and Karen seem too young to pick it up. They make a pool out back, a big one, and start a hundred thousand infant Yeerks.

Timothy lists ways things could go wrong. Once all the chip Elves from any given world are dead it starts moving again. Mingling and Midnight's Ardas might still be moving and they have sane Valar. Anyone can walk through the door, as we learned today, and that includes people who can take you. And eventually, even if it takes a very very long time, all of the summoning you'll be doing will inch along all the other worlds - we're immortal, really and truly, and if it takes Cam ten thousand years to get out he will -

         We're not going to be doing very much summoning. In ten thousand years he'll find us spread across an octillion worlds -

And spend the rest of eternity chasing you down. You're kind of optimized for Bells to hate you and they're very persistent people.

          But you think they'll assent to giving us all morph with some Vala-imposed stringencies, or whatever you're imagining -

We are going to be omnipotent. I bet we can do even better than that. But I can promise not worse than that, yeah. They'll agree. They'd agree even if being predictably the sort of people who agree wasn't helpful in this circumstance -

          I think you and your confederates do too much thinking in those terms.

- I mean, yes, there are a couple hundred million worlds in which I commit hundreds of thousands of murders because I do too much thinking in those terms. 

         And the lesson from that is -

Well. If you don't let me draw my circle, and then I get found, then I go commit a genocide. I probably won't find it very satisfying. It will have innocent collateral damage. People won't trust me again. Cam'll - understand but he won't be okay with it and he'll be even less okay with the amount of - subterfuge - I have to do to pull it off without his interfering. I will destroy most of the things I care about, render myself permanently a liability on every project I care about, and make the world worse. There are millions of me in that state, and I can very easily imagine what it's like to be like them, and they want to die, and I won't have that choice. The thing I am doing is very likely to just end up making me the instrument of unthinkable horrors. But I'm doing it. 

          You've said. I don't think we'd be very happy in morph.

Timothy is patiently, quietly curious about why. Eventually -

         It'd be lonely.

Could have Yeerks inside other Yeerks who are morphed -

        Then those ones would be happy but the morphed ones would be lonely - this is one-sided, see -

Yes, I'd noticed. If it were a species with mind-reading would that solve it?

        Might help. We also don't want to be - tamed pets -

Timothy empathizes. We can give you your own dimension and then stay out of it. There might be a way to get a godspring to only turn redmages, would Yeerks like redmages?

       I think so. Could touch the prisoner ones and see -

Don't. Everything else you've done is fixable but that - no. Don't. But even if Godspring doesn't do it we could find a way to give every Yeerk the redmage thing and then you wouldn't be lonely. The redmage thing, and osanwë, and Elf senses, and a dimension all your own with thousands of habitable planets to go explore -

        The swing back and forth between - configuring yourself to murder all of us even the children - and trying to understand us -

I think that might be a wizard-from-1802 thing. I've never seen my alts do it. I am capable of deeply and fundamentally comprehending someone and also intending to destroy them and everything they hold dear. Had to be. Was going to rule the world.

They make Yeerks into daeva, despite the fact this lets time pass. They have Minor verify that the GCP had a thousand circles out for Cam and that Cam took one and that the soul Elves in Ganymede died as intended. 

They tell the redmages that Sunset's still alive, just paused. Timothy avoids them. 

The time-pausing effect isn't guaranteed, there are a lot of worlds chained to it and it might fail to cooperate somewhere. The genderswapped Arda's moving again, with its representative dead; I think a couple of the other Ardas we intervened with late are in the same state. If you're wrong and one of them has a portal to Sanity -

         I'll take the deal if I get to keep you.

No. 

        That sort of - changes your moral high ground, you know that? You can say 'I committed to genocide to give my society a chance to stop the Yeerks', that's one thing, 'I committed to genocide to avoid personally being -'

- the instrument of the enslavement of everyone I care about - look, I can't get anywhere on the 'getting your people the best deal the multiverse can offer you' thing while I'm Yeerked.

        They can verify that it's you writing things. 

No.

        I think you're going to agree eventually.

No. 

        I want to keep you because you're interesting. You see so much of people, it's almost like you infest them and -

Timothy's first instinct is to recoil in revulsion and declare it's nothing like that. He's been trying not to have those instincts. 

        You want me to do something that might end with your powerful allies storming this place, starving me out of your head, keeping me in a can until you think it's time to discharge your promise -

Things are going to end that way no matter what, it's just a question of how soon and how many people get hurt in the interim.

        How badly do you actually want this circle? I offered. You refused -

- you could keep me until we have the superior setup. You don't have to spend any time in a pool. If we win, you can have me right up until I have a nice consenting host to transfer you to.

        You can draw your circle.

Thank you. 

Ganymede has two new residents. 

She recognizes the demon. 

The demon's never seen her before in his life but there's no soul Elves and he can't make himself a violin and he doesn't like the channel the furniture angel has the TV turned to, so he'll nod at her if she wants to walk in his direction, why not.

"- you're the one who -"

Nod.

"This is going to sound insane but - were you meaning to do it in advance or was there like a - floaty thing -"

...blink.

She starts crying. 

...does she want a hug? He can't ask but he can hold out his arms a little.

Hug - sniffle - "I still don't know what happened do you know what happened can you - help me figure out how to look it up, or - or something -"

They confiscated his wand but he can make a wand-waving gesture.

"Yes! Yes! So what happened was I took a summons to pick a couple people up from Ganymede and - then that, and then on the way back I just - stopped. Taking them back. I didn't mean to decide to do that I don't know why I decided to do that -"

Ear-point gesture?

"Yeah, they were Elves -"

Nod. Wand-wave. There's a computer, if he clicks around enough he can find Minor's channel and a Recommended link about Hazel from there.

She reads it, crying. "- was that what happened to you too you didn't answer -"

Headshake.

"Well. Thank you - I've been asking everyone - do you need anything -"

Oh look one of Minor's videos about how much gags suck.

" - you holed a planet."

He finds his trial transcript.

There isn't much else to do here.

She spends a couple hours reading.

"Sorry," she says eventually.

Sigh.

" - how'd you end up here -"

Yeah he's still confused about that one.

She's still clicking around on Minor's site. " - that's him, that's the person who -"

He can't startle very violently, but he can sure startle.

"I have three weeks to trial should I just get a dictionary and play "is the word you want in the first half of this sheaf of pages" for the next couple days -"

Nod.

Well she will pull up an online dictionary and then quickly switch to the thousand most common English words because this'll otherwise be ridiculous and then - "okay, go -"

The thousand most common English words are fairly inadequate to this task and they still take forever to get through, but he persists through expressing: he wouldn't do that something is not safe and very wrong i need to talk very soon.

"When's your trial date -"

don't know

...Cam goes looking for Theodore's volunteer email at the parks he works for. Waves the cursor around it. he will guess better

...she sends an email. Uh, the black hole demon's here and says something's wrong.

Three hours later it's announced Cam has a visitor.

Cam goes out to meet his visitor!

"I was going to ask what the fuck was going on but that seems like a super useless thing to ask someone who can't talk. Uh. Can you use magic or does the binding prevent that -"

Headshake.

"Where're the Elves, there're supposed to be Elves for this -"

Headshake. Holds up a finger. Goes looking for the fairy and waves his arms at her.

Over she comes. 

"Do you know where the Elves are."

She starts crying. 

"- okay, no Elves, got it. Write for more -"

This is clearly underestimating the gravity of the situation. He makes a pleading gesture at the fairy.

" - I took a summons. Task was to watch the dragons but then they asked if I'd go to Ganymede, tell two people here - two Elves here - to come back, their shift was up, their replacements would be over soon. And then this guy did a floaty thing? And I did the task but I was sort of out of it and then on the way back I just. Stopped? And left them there - until they died - and then the summoner dismissed me - I didn't mean to do it I think it was the Hazel mind-control thing -"

" - who did the floaty thing -"

"Uh, red hair, doubt he was twenty -"

Cam makes an emphatic 'what the fuck' gesture.

" - I don't know why he'd have done that."

"He said that too," she says a bit shrilly, "which doesn't help me..."

"Yeah don't worry about it the GCP knows about Hazel I bet you'll get off. Okay. Evil Timothy, possibly evil other people which is I assume why we're not just writing whichever of Timothy's Elf alts conjure their mail and saying 'fix this', but they don't have a general-purpose way of evilifying people because they didn't evilify you -"

Nod.

"Do you have more information than me on the possible source of the evilification. Can Tireh's magic system also do that or something and I just didn't read that memo."

Does the fairy want to play Up Goer Five some more.

Sure. 

new one of me maybe

"- the GCP lady demon, if I go to her with this is she going to be 'I am like talking to a particularly moronic brick wall' or will she look stuff up -"

she might be good

"Mmmkay. Uh, I'll do that, and if that doesn't work I guess I'll kill your summoner and we can figure it out from there?"

...Cam neither nods nor shakes his head.

"This is absolutely that urgent. You can fairy-write a better plan if you come up with one, I'll check with you first."

Sigh.

And he gets a ride to Singapore.

" - we should write that better plan, I think he was serious -"

I don't know who else is bad I only guessed him

"- so you - don't have a better plan?"

even that might not work

"You, uh, just kind of get into shit, don't you."

you have no idea

Does anyone stop him if he just walks into the GCP offices.

Nope, this doesn't happen so frequently that they feel the need to have security about it.

Does the forensics demon have an office.

Not with her name on it.

He'll knock on the nearest door, then.

Niari opens up. "Hello? - Theodore, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Um, my brother has just committed several murders for unclear reasons and I really really need a competent forensics demon fast is yours around -"

"Uh, yes, although we don't really have a procedure for hiring her out..."

"He has mind-control powers and is Imperiusing daeva to kill people off for him and then arranging for you to arrest the daeva gagged so they can't warn anyone I was kind of more hoping to supplement your own investigation than hire her."

"Are you saying this is what happened with Swan?"

"I have no idea what the fuck happened with Swan because Timothy had the Elves who were on site and could've talked to him murdered."

"...Let me get you Ken, he's the summoner coordinator and can get Swan allowed to make written material."

"Thank you, that will help. In the meantime you should be looking out for any daeva Timothy summons -"

"I'll ask Lilie to confirm that he summoned that fairy." She sends an email. "Ken's over here -" She leads him to an office, knocks sharply.

Ken opens the door.

"Swan needs writing privileges, my auth," she says.

"Are you fucking kidding me -"

"I have that authorization."

"You never -"

"It's an emergency. Do your job."

Ken grumbles but goes to his computer.

"That'll go through in an hour," she says. Her computer pings. "...Lilie says Timothy did not summon that fairy."

" - okay, well, that at least makes more sense than Timothy being on a murder spree, someone's impersonating Timothy and on a murder spree."

"We were asked to resume custody of Swan by the Elves, who said he'd been cursing most of the people he'd come into contact with and they were wrong about being able to handle him. Does that sound off to you?"

"Uh. Yes. Yes it does. What a conveniently unforensically verifiable claim about why they had to hand him off - who told you that -"

"Maitimo did - the 'Afternoon' fork -"

"In person or via message and if it was a message how do you know it was from him -"

"Message, in the conjuration dump."

"Maybe ask Lilie about that one too - it could've been him, Imperiused, but -"

She heads to a different, unmarked office. "Lilie!"

Lilie opens the door. "Niari."

"Do you have a while -"

"Yes. What is the matter?"

"Someone Imperiused a fairy to murder the Elves in Ganymede immediately before Cam was transferred there. The fairy says Timothy did it. Cam knows what's going on but can only communicate by nodding at my guesses and the guess he nodded at was that lots and lots of people have been turned evil and should be assumed compromised and he doesn't know who's safe."

Elsewhere she conjures and - "sub-Visser, Hell's moving." Check check - "they're all moving - they were stopped yesterday, I checked -"

"What - how far have they gotten -"

"- eight, ten hours? If one of them started up because their chip Elf died we can stall them by making a new set -"

"Are there any lower-maintenance options?"

"I think if you make a new set of chip Elves and then stash them in Hazel that also keeps their world paused but I'm not certain, could ask the bar. Alternately hole the planets the doors open to, that should seriously impede them and give them new priorities even if we don't get lucky and get all the Valar -"

"We wouldn't get all the Valar, they're scattered around, some of them on various Endorës."

"No real downside to the attempt, though. Should I make chip Elves -"

Sigh. "Yes, go ahead."

Meanwhile, Lilie's most basic conjurations are getting bewildering results. Conjuring over the Maitimos template reveals Timothy and the one at home in Sanity with his children. The others all appear to be dead. The fairy was summoned by one of Theodore's Elf alts, also now dead. There are so many dead Elves.

That is a little terrifying. Are there any Elves in Milliways who aren't dead -

N- yes, now there's a batch of chip Elves.

" - they're making new ones to pause the Elf worlds -"

And here is a little model of Minor near the chip reader.

"Can you expedite the - letting Cam talk - they didn't want him to talk they went out of their way -"

"The delay is almost entirely a lightspeed problem," says Niari. "There isn't a message conjuration setup on Ganymede."

"I know you won't but you should snap his binding."

"The summoners are under watch, he'd just wind up back in Hell," says Niari.

"They had everyone paused for at least a week. They're trying to do it again. Once we're paused we lose. If you can dismiss him and hear from him ten minutes faster as a result -"

"How would they pause here?" asks Niari. "They don't have anyone from here there -"

"Ex-summoner to get the door, kidnap someone."

"We'd have to get a message to Ganymede about taking down his circles," says Niari. "It's recent enough they won't have been cleared. Same lightspeed problem."

Nod. 

Lilie looks - "They have summoned someone. Milliways itself is not very conjurable but the summoned fairy looks like a former human. And yet we move."

"Have to convince them to get the door and then kidnap someone have they done that -"

"I cannot conjure the door. The inhabitants of the bar environment are thus -" Heap. Heap. Heap. Additional person.

"I think that means the door's open to here. For now."

"Is there anything else we can do?" asks Niari.

"No."

The door closes; someone drags the hostage away to be infested. "- nope, that didn't pause them -"

Orik twitches.

Leaving to go turn it off would be suspicious.

       You anticipated that -

You have full access to all my anticipations and everything else, I am incapable of withholding information, I'm not trying non-cooperative behavior - well, I guess there's quietly crying, but I've been endeavoring to save that for when your concentration isn't important -

        Doesn't distract me.

Do you have extra attentional capacity on top of mine or is it more that you can stop paying attention to me -

        ...I can pay attention to you the way I pay attention to my toe? Notice if anything changes about it...

Timothy's thinking about how to use this. 

        Not trying non-cooperative behavior indeed -

I would prefer to avoid having thoughts like that, and I suspect I'll get out of the habit eventually. I am very much advantaged here by the fact you know exactly what I want and what I'll do under various arrangements of circumstances. It is admittedly difficult not to have adversarial thoughts about someone who enslaved my family, murdered my friends, used my body to betray people who trusted me -

        Our entire relationship is predicated on your absolute certainty you'd do worse to mine, given the chance.

I would, Timothy says, and means it. And you would probably have some adversarial thoughts about me while I did. People manage to achieve quite a lot together while scheming betrayal, even people who don't have such charmingly straightforward methods of verification. I've considered how to keep things from you or work around you or achieve things you don't want. I didn't come up with any. So I'm doing this. And if our agreement was a good bet for you in the first place, it's a better bet now, because they're closer to stopping you and you'll let some time slip in the daeva realms or whenever a hostage is unexpectedly killed -

        Stop talking. You can continue thinking just don't orient it at persuading me -

Can I talk if it's not oriented at persuading you, I'm so lonely -

         You'd have made an interesting Yeerk, Orik says after a moment.

...Timothy does not respond. Instead he thinks. He would have made an abjectly miserable Yeerk. There might be a Timothy Yeerk out there somewhere - not likely, since there's a Timothy blue centaur alien and worlds don't seem to ever have two alts, but not impossible, in the incomprehensible vastness of the multiverse. And he would be lonely, desperately lonely - the only ones of us that aren't lonely are the telepaths, and they're all fated to die alone - but the constant company of someone who hates him is its own special kind of torture - it'd be that, not morality, that'd stop me from taking a host, I couldn't bear it -

         We consider that weakness.

Oh, it is weakness. The strong thing to do would be take a host and be a perfect Yeerk and wait for an opening. I would not be strong enough to do that. You have achieved more good for your people than I ever could have done in your place, because I couldn't have been in your place. 

         If they find out, you know what they'll do to me?

If you make the wrong bet either way you get slowly tortured to death. It's terribly unfair. But even if they find out - someday I'll be free, no matter how far away that day is, and I don't leave my people behind and I will scour the multiverse for whatever it takes to get you back and give you a happy life. 

        And I'm supposed to believe that if it's in a million years you'll remember me -

I'll get a retroactive eidetic memory necklace from a soul Elf alt of my father, he was nearly finished with them when you had him murdered and there are other hims, somewhere, who probably got it done. Or I'll achieve the same goal some other way. Forever is a very long time.

Also this has been a very memorable experience.

"Are we sure we got all the circles? Maybe one of the people we're not infesting has one open - a redmage, Kib and Aydanci still holed up in their room - we're running a little short of personnel I'm confident of or I'd consider dragging them out -"

Conjure - "if so they're doing it in light or something else unconjurable but that doesn't mean much, that's how the Godspring projectors work -"

"Which the servantmakers in particular might do purely for convenience." Sigh. "Get Passan and Etret, go find out."

He heads upstairs with two Thermoses.

And Cam gets a message from his summoner authorizing him to make written material and immediately, he's already got it composed in his head, makes a letter - conjures quick to find the address label -

All hail Trelane, Prelate of the Pegasus Galaxy:

- Cam

And ninety-one seconds later there's a ripple in the air in front of Butterfly and do you prefer to have a parasite in your brain controlling your movements? 

NO

Now she's free and her Yeerk is floating in midair and everyone else is being asked the same question.

She collapses to her knees and doubles over, retching and sobbing.

"We had a deal," Timothy's Yeerk says. 

We do, Timothy confirms. He has permission to remain until a satisfactory alternative has been arranged - is everyone okay - 

I think no.

In the Singapore office where Theodore and Niari and Lilie are standing, a Vala materializes. We are convening and extend an invitation to an emergency hearing concerning the actions of alien brain parasites known as Yeerks.

Cam gets the same message.

I am currently unable to travel.

I am the travel arrangements.

I would be delighted to attend.

Poof now he's in a familiar circular auditorium on Taniquetil along with a lot of other people and a barely-sensate blue centaur alien and an even-less-sensate alt of his.

Is Timothy there -

Well, over here is Ambela snuggling Tireh in one arm and the new Bell in the other and singing to them, shakier than Elf voices usually get -

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry -"

Miranda is conspicuously missing.

Timothy's present but standing off to the side, doesn't look at Cam.

He can't speak aloud. He can wave?

Doesn't look his way. 

...there aren't any soul Elves around but there's Valar. Is Timothy okay -?

He declined to have his Yeerk removed. 

Why

They'd reached some kind of agreement. We're having a hearing in order to answer these questions.

...Cam goes over to sit with his alts. Mirelótë waves him over and puts Tireh under his wing so she can instead dual-snuggle new Bell and Rúmil.

"I, uh, yes," says Niari to the Vala.

"What would be the added benefit of my presence?" asks Lilie.

We will have people present for forensic confirmation but if your organization would prefer their own representative for that -

"I will notify Rochelle and attend," says Lilie, and she goes to tell Rochelle and comes back.

"Uh, yes."

And then there they all are. 

This is an emergency hearing under Statute 44 of the National Security Act of 1517, which authorizes relocation and questioning of persons not subject to our jurisdiction in cases where there is a grave immediate danger to our world and no less intrusive remedy. The High Court of Valinor has authorized the hearing on the grounds that several hundred of our citizens are dead, alleged to have been murdered by operatives of the Yeerk Empire from the dimension hereby designated ‘Thirty-eight’, and that the stated goals of the Yeerk Empire include the conquest of any worlds accessible to them. Under Statute 44 subsection 11, testimony at an emergency national security hearing cannot be introduced in court as evidence; parties will be invited to repeat their testimony for a non-emergency hearing once they have had access to counsel.

This hearing is occurring in sixfold time dilation, meaning that time within the Máhanaxar is passing 10⁶ times as quickly as time elsewhere in this and time-stabilized dimensions. Dimension Thirty-eight is presently paused, and all Yeerks in the known multiverse outside Thirty-eight are present here; those over eight days of age have all been charged with kidnapping, torture, and conspiracy to first-degree homicide, with additional charges pending.

As is standard for hearings before the High Court of Valinor, an effect is in place making it apparent when a speaker lies. All persons present are invited to test the effect. Two and two is five. 

It sounds distinctly different. 

The effect is non-invasive; parties may decline to testify with it in place. The effect has been modified to function in response to statements made with thought-speak, osanwë, or other telepathic forms of communication as relevant.

The following accommodations are being put in place in order to enable communications: all parties present at this hearing can now communicate telepathically according to the protocols of osanwë, with thoughts defaulting to private. Parties cannot communicate telepathically with each other, even if they are usually capable of doing so, in order to ensure witnesses do not converge on a single interpretation of events. 

The following accommodations have been put in place in order to ensure the safety and perceived safety of all parties; except for forensic conjuration and the previously described effects, magic does not work for the duration of this hearing, and mind-altering spells have been cancelled. All parties are temporarily physically invulnerable in the manner typical of daeva; this effect will cease when parties depart the Máhanaxar.

As is standard for hearings before the High Court of Valinor since the Evidential Procedures Act of 1517, corroborating forensic evidence will be entered into the record during testimony. An emergency hearing is automatically concluded should the court conclude that the evidentiary standard for imminent danger to the world is not borne out by testimony.

This court invites Campbell Mark Swan, who communicated to us the nature of the emergency, to testify. 

Cam unwingwraps Tireh, who puts her own wings around herself and shivers, and goes up.

Less than a full day ago my subjective time a new Bell of the same appearance as Mirelótë and the six-year-old entered the bar and described herself as a veteran of a war against parasitic brain slugs with the help of blue centaur aliens. She acted convincingly Bell-like and gave no cause for suspicion and Bar said that she was a Bell. She brought in her twin sister. I was then suddenly dismissed to discover that the GCP had circles out for my arrest again and I took one and was then gagged. The soul Elves usually on duty as translators at the Ganymede prison were gone. I met a fairy who said she'd been Imperiused into killing them and identified Timothy as the person who'd done it when she saw a picture of him. I got her to email Theodore, who came to visit and went to get my gag lifted. When that came through I wrote to Trelane, who was in Vala custody, asking her to tell the Valar that the Milliways population was likely taken over by brain parasites. Then I got invited here.

It was communicated to Ganymede that you were rearrested because you had been using mind-altering magic while on parole. Can you comment -

I have never cast mind-affecting magic on anything other than animals of species not protected by Revelation law and as authorized on Melkor and Sauron.

The court calls Timothy Laurence Way to testify, and notes for the record that he is sharing bodies at this time with the Yeerk Orik 044.

- uh, twelve days ago subjective, I got a message notifying me that a new Bell had entered Milliways; we went downstairs and met her. She struck me as - extremely stressed, but that was explained by the war she had described recently surviving. She invited me to her room to get an Andalite shapeshifting technology in which she and her sister were practiced; when I opened the door they stunned me with a weapon of some kind. When I woke up I could not move, and Orik 044 identified himself to his confederates, confirmed successful infestation of a host, and began discussing with Antren - the Yeerk controlling Isabella Swan and Kestil - the Yeerk controlling Alexandra Swan - how to take control of Milliways.

They had access to all my memories, all my thoughts, I think they also get any skills and abilities possessed by the person infested. They confirmed that a Yeerk controlling a Hazel wizard could use Hazel magic. The first stage of their plan was to murder all of the telepathic Elves in Milliways, since those could hear the host screaming and alert everyone. They summoned a demon, Orik Imperiused him into permitting infestation, they sent him off to commit those murders, they debated methods of infesting the other daeva present in Milliways. They couldn't think of an angle to persuade or magically compel Cam to accept infestation, they thought they could get the others.

Orik was instructed to distract Cam, and did that except when needed to Imperius people until they had arranged to have Cam arrested when dismissed. They had him dismissed, paused the worlds outside Milliways, and finished establishing control of the establishment.

I'd been speaking intermittently with Orik about what it was like to be a subject of the Yeerk Empire, what Yeerks wanted, why they did this, what they got out of it. After ten days I persuaded him to let me secretly place a circle, thereby starting time again in the affected world, in exchange for my assurance on a number of points, specifically that I would arrange for all Yeerks to have a consent-compatible and emotionally satisfying hosted relationship without any Yeerks living involuntarily in pools, that Yeerks prosecuted for their role in war crimes in their home world would be included in that access, that Yeerks would be made immortal if they wished it and have access to as much scientific and magical knowledge as was compatible with ensuring they did not again cause harm to other species, and that he could continue to control me personally until he was presented with an alternative he found satisfactory. Time started again in the paused worlds. After a while Orik's commanders noticed and scrambled to figure out what was going on. When repeated attempts to pause the worlds had failed, the Valar materialized suddenly in Milliways and freed everybody.