The Traitors
Prolog
My name is Esaren One-Nine-Nine.
It's not a long time since I was a mighty warlord in the service of the Empire that rules the galaxy. Since I had a glorious future waiting me, my head full of dreams of more fame and power, with no worries except such as an incompetent subordinate. However, when I'm sitting here now, it all feels like it had happened hundreds of years ago. As if I hadn't been the same Yeerk at all then. Maybe I'm even right in a way when I say so. I've experienced so much and changed so much within the latest years. And I've learnt some facts about the universe we live in.
Some cruel facts.
I am writing this on a planet called Earth. In case you don't know, it's on the edge of the Northern Province of the Yeerk Empire. Our Empire, as I used to say once. But it, the great nation of my people which does not know the word forgiving, is one reason why I am now here in a scabby suburb of one human city on Earth, in a country called the United States of America. Another is the species all around me – the humans. Those weak creatures walking on two legs. I live in the body of one, so I guess I can't really criticize the whole species, but those who were part of why I fell down to this situation were humans. Five young humans.
My people is taking over Earth. Those five humans are trying to fight us. And they manage well. That is all because of the fool who is leading the invasion – Esplin Nine-Four-Double-Six, the "prime". Who used to be my friend, when we were fellow Vissers. But everything has changed. Though I know the secret of the humans, I will not help Esplin. I'd rather see the human species free than Esplin Nine-Four-Double-Six as Visser One. I am now here, alone and forgotten, and Esplin is still holding his rank as Visser Three and using most of his time for living glamorous and obscene life with his mistress.
Obscene, I say- though if we keep what my people calls obscene, I am the worst of all, I think. I've gone so far in obscenity that I am a traitor. A traitor of my species. Although it wasn't my decision. You can't order your heart. Mine chose an enemy. A member of people that we had been at war with for many, many generations. And he loved me too. Both of us paid for that with our lives. For him it just meant death. For me it meant losing everything. My rank, regard, friends. That equals death to a Yeerk Visser. The only difference is that the shame is much, much greater. And you can't get away from it.
What is the most rending – and strange – is that all this happened to me actually twice.
This is the story about the man I loved and love still, about my way from riches to rags, about dreams that crushed, about a broken friendship, about desperate tries for making everything fine again – but for the most of all this story is about a forbidden love. Passionate love that should have been quelled. Me, Esaren One-Nine-Nine, am writing this with my own human hands, with tears in my human eyes.
