Cassie goes full-on vulcan mind meld with the whale, because…whales are only cool if they’re fucking magical?  Or something?  I don’t know, but it’s really irritating.  Why can’t whales just be cool for being cool?  Why add in all this hippy crap?  Anyway, they swap life stories and Cassie learns whale knowledge.

Marco remorphs into a dolphin and is fine, but even though Tobias points out that they’ve only got 25 minutes left, even though they’ve got a handy perch right there that Cassie can apparently talk to, no one thinks to reset the clock so they can keep going on with their primary reason for coming out in the first place.  Instead, they go home.

Yeah, that’s right.  The whole point of the excursion was to look for the lost alien, and all they did was goof off and talk to a whale.  And, really, no one even mentions that.  There’s no ‘oh, darn, if only we could actually accomplish anything’ or whatever, no.  Just…head home, like it’s no big thang.

Next day Cassie goes to see Marco because she feels guilty, and Marco points out that it’s not really her fault.  You know what people still aren’t talking about?

THE FACT THAT AN ANDALITE IS SENDING OUT AN SOS MESSAGE AND SAYS HE’S RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

REMEMBER?

COME ON, CASSIE, PAY ATTENTION.

Instead of caring about the guy that’s currently stuck underwater, we spend more page time reassuring Cassie that everything’s okay and she’s still a perfect little author’s pet and it’s not her fault that Marco got injured.

You know what I’d like?  Some actual fucking angst for Cassie.  Have Marco get mad at her.  Why not?  He had a pretty hard scare, and he’s not really into this whole shtick anyway.  If Marco was mad at her, that doesn’t mean it’s really her fault, but the whole bit could come off as much less pandering.  Then she could have some real self-doubt/guilt issues to work through, and we could give up on the fake shit we’ve been dealing with this whole book about how morphing is just like infesting.

Marco brings up two stories her heard on the news about how there’s a couple of new ‘look for stuff underwater’ projects going on and WE GET IT ALREADY.  THERE’S A SUNKEN ANDALITE NEARBY AND THE YEERKS ARE LOOKING FOR HIM.  WE PICKED THIS UP BACK WHEN YOU EXPLICITLY EXPLAINED IT TO US.  MOVE ON!

It’s like this whole book is being written backwards.  It wants to be mysterious, but it gave away the answer upfront, so now it’s just chapter after chapter of “why aren’t you doing something yet?”

“I think it is. But Marco, I don’t know. If someone gets hurt… killed … just because I have these dreams – I can’t make that kind of decision.”

You know, this is a real problem that people really have to deal with, and it’s nice to see it be addressed…but not by Cassie.  With Cassie, I just want to smack her and yell “grow a spine.”  She’s the least complex of the characters, and I think that really detracts from her ability to carry this off.

“Yes, but can you decide to do nothing? That’s a decision, too.”

Thank you, Marco.

Later they meet at Rachel’s house again and Jake sits down and actually spends several pages telling us what we already know.  Oh…joy.

Cassie got the location of the sunken spaceship from the whale and looked it up on a map, but it’s way far out, so they’re going to hitch a ride on a freight boat and then morph dolphins once they get close enough.

Apparently they’re cool with demorphing from seagull to dolphin in the middle of the ocean, but going dolphin-human-dolphin to reset the clock and just swimming out there, that’s too complex.

So instead I said, “Look, don’t ever get hurt, okay?”

He smiled that smile. “Me? I’m indestructible.”

Oh, right, that’s why I love you.  *FEEEEEEEEEELZ*

The next day, things go exactly as planned.  They morph into seagulls, find a ship going the right direction, and land on it.  So glad we got to read about that plan twice, once in the planning and once in the doing stage.  Wasn’t that just riveting?  They demorph while they wait and decide they need to spend about an hour there before jumping ship.

And they quite literally jump off the ship.  Because, you know, freight ships aren’t massive or anything, and it’s not like hitting the water from that high up would hurt/stun you.  On, and also the passage of the ship would create drag that would fuck with your ability to swim right.  And also the water will be really, really cold and a shock to your system, on top of the shock of hitting the water and then being tossed around by the ship.  And that’s all if you don’t actually crash your skull into the hull on the way down.

In short, guys, you are really stupid.  There’s a clear answer here.  Morph seagulls again, fly off, wait for the ship to pass, and then sit on top of the water.  You can do that as a seagull.  It’s much safer.

Cassie wants to call the whole thing off, because that’s the one note she’s been given in this book and she’s going to play it, damnit.  The others tell her to chill, then jump off the side, because all that stuff I said before doesn’t count in fictionland.

Actually, she does mention that the water is like ice, but that’s all we get.  A mention.  It has no tangible effect on her.

Cassie uses her borrowed whale knowledge to navigate to where the ship is.  They see a helicopter dragging a sensor through the water at the same spot, so they assume those are Controllers, but nothing they can do about that now.  Instead they dive down and find Ax’s ship.  It’s like a big, giant, park in a dome.  The author does a fairly decent job of describing things here, and I like the switch in plant coloring from predominantly green to predominantly blue.  I have no idea how feasible that would be on a scientific level, but it’s suitably alien. 

They find a hatch with a door and decide to go in, because they’re running out of air and really need to breathe.  Fortunately, not only does this door let them in, but Andalite air is perfectly breathable to humans (and dolphins, before they demorph).

As soon as they get inside the dome proper, Cassie gets knocked unconscious.