My name is Embrin 4451. At the time this sorry story starts, I was waiting in a yeerk pool. I knew little more than that I was a prisoner of the humans. The war was over by this point – we had lost. Or so the newer arrivals to the pool said.
I didn't know why for a long time, but I was taken out of the pool. One moment I was swimming close to the surface, the next I had been scooped effortlessly out of the pool. I tumbled helplessly in the small amount of water that had come with me. It was incredibly disorientating. When I recovered enough to look around with my sonar, I discovered that I was in a small container with rounded walls – probably a bucket. Everything shook. I did call out, but even if someone from the pool had heard me, what exactly were they going to do about it?
I was in the bucket for a long time. I decided quite quickly that the movement meant that I was being carried by somebody. Somebody bipedal – human? Hork-bajir? The gait wasn't right for a gedd or andalite. The bucket moved, and then sat still for a long time, and then moved again, on and off, for what was probably hours.
Eventually I was poured unceremoniously into a proper pool. Small, the sort of thing you might have on a small ship or maybe a temporary infestation facility. It was able to house several dozen yeerks, but I was alone, and stayed alone for the weeks to come. I had no idea where I was – but at least there was Kandrona. Whoever had me intended to keep me alive. How reassuring.
It was at least a day later, or so I figured, when they took me out of the pool again. This time it was a net, and then a set of rough, incredibly strong fingers. You can't know how scary that is. My sonar showed me huge, indistinct figures crowded around me. The hand closed around me with impersonal firmness. I writhed instinctively, but it was hopeless – the fingers just pinched me around the middle in two places, hard. It hurt.
Despite my fear, nothing all that terrible really happened. The hand held me, turned me over, and I thought that the figure was holding me up to its head to look at me. It waved me around for a bit. I wondered what it was saying to the other humans – see the yeerk! See how helpless it is. And to think that slugs like this once threatened our freedom.
Yeah, I know full well that that's how humans think of us. Slugs. Slimy invertebrates to be crushed underfoot. It never bothered me - until I was in a situation when somebody could very well do just that.
When they were finished with me they put me back in the pool, and I dove straight to the bottom of it. I felt safer there, although I knew that they could still get at me. How small and useless is the naked yeerk.
It happened again, every day or so. They would fish me out of the pool and hold me for a small time. After the first few times, the first person handed me on to other people. One of them held me too loosely, and I slipped through their fingers and hit the floor very painfully. After that I stopped wriggling; all that would happen would be that they'd drop me again and I'd get hurt. Another held me on flat palms, touching me as little as possible. I could practically feel their disgust radiating off them. Another ran curious fingers down the length of my fins; I couldn't even be bothered trying to move away.
Weeks passed. Apart from being taken out for show-and-tell, my life was empty. There was nothing to do, nobody to talk to, and nothing to read. I just about went crazy. Maybe I did go a little crazy.
They didn't make any attempt to communicate with me through the computer port. I wondered if they even knew how. Not that I was expecting them to ask my opinion on anything – clearly they didn't care. But maybe to warn me of any dire consequences for misbehaviour? Even just tell me to cooperate. Surely whatever tests they were performing, they could be helped by a cooperative subject?
Sometimes, to my disgust, I found myself wishing that they would try to talk to me. Even just to tell me to do something! I couldn't take the endless silence anymore. People aren't meant to be alone that long. No, not even yeerks; we're evolved to have a certain amount of social interaction too.
If they had asked something of me, I was pretty sure that I would have done it. Was that traitorous of me? Probably. A great many things are.
Nevertheless, the computer port stayed completely dead, and considering that to talk to me without it they would have had to let me infest someone... well.
And then, something happened to break the monotony.
I was swimming around the pool in a dreary spiral – start at the bottom, round and round until I reached the top, then go back down again – when the gently lapping waters of the pool were broken by something falling into it. At first I thought it was a human arm reaching in, but when I sent out sonar it was revealed – incredibly, the compact shape of another yeerk!
I was, sad to say, thrilled. Company. I changed course immediately and swam towards them.
I gave them a polite amount of time to get their bearings, and then drifted within hailing distance. *Hello,* I called. *My name is Embrin. Who are you?*
The other yeerk didn't answer. They twisted in the water, seeming off-balance somehow, and then shot away from me.
Strange, I thought. Perhaps I had startled them. *My apologies,* I said politely. A few strokes brought me up close to them again. *I guess I'm a bit starved for company here; didn't mean to surprise you.*
The other yeerk darted away again. This time they were certainly running away from me.
*What's wrong with you?* I demanded. I followed again.
This time they didn't run. Instead they turned to face me, and reached their palps out to touch mine. I endured it, bewildered. They hadn't even greeted me. *Hello?*
There was something... weird... about the way they touched me. Something weird about the way they swam. Suddenly I was filled with unease. *Hello? Are you going to answer me?*
The yeerk made... a noise. It wasn't speech, it was just gibberish. A burst of nonsense sounds.
The stranger couldn't talk?
I pulled away from them. There was something downright wrong about this yeerk. Upsettingly, they followed me. Their palps touched me again. They were way too close to me.
I tried to disentangle myself, slightly panicked. *Stop it,* I said, even though I was now certain that they couldn't understand me. *Get off. No, leave me alone!*
I managed to get away from them, and they let me, drifting in a way that seemed almost mindless. I retreated to the bottom corner of the pool, shaken.
What are you? I wondered. After weeks of solitude, I wasn't taking this well. I very much wanted for that yeerk not to touch me again. Are they crazy? Am I crazy?
I watched them. They swam erratically about the pool, in fits and starts. I hoped that they weren't looking for me. They probably weren't, because there was nowhere to hide in there anyway, but it was an unpleasant thought.
They look like they're an immature, learning to swim, I thought suddenly. Really immature. Just hatched from a grub.
And then I knew what they were, and I felt so stupid for not seeing it before. What had the humans stolen me for? Just to take me out and pass me around? I had felt so listless, being held in clinical fingers.
It wasn't a yeerk at all.
It was a human.
Evidently it was practicing the morph. Getting used to the instincts. Somehow, I doubted that spying on my defeated people was the purpose of this operation.
I watched the not-yeerk blundering around the pool, and felt almost like laughing. Ah, humanity, I thought. Perhaps it's true. There's nothing we would have done to you that you won't do to each other.