Earth
Date: December 1993
Yeerk Date: (I don't know)
Perit
Hur Date: Growing Season, 38 Atenit Ha, Year of Abemis
Rehur
My name is Erudet End Rehur Yiaggi. I am a Perit Hur. I serve the people. I serve the gods. I tend the crops with great skill. I am a farmer. A farmer in search of an omen.
This was the truth: the crops were failing. Our people were going back to the old ways. Becoming carnivorous.
Yet, I still tended the crops with great voracity. I was determined to remain at peace with the creatures of the forest. I would not consume them. I would not be a predator.
The great priest said that someday, the gods would come down and show us a new way. I had awaited this day for all of my life, hoping it would come within my lifetime.
Atemus, the Great-Priest, said that day would soon be upon us. "The gods will come in their great sky-boats to show us the right way. They will come in two moons."
I believed him. Many of the others did not.
But what he said was true. The gods did come in two moons.
It was another bright, sunny day. The drought that had lasted several seasons was still upon us. Yet another one of my fellow Perit Hur, Beimit, had subjected himself to predation.
"Though my will is strong, my hunger is stronger," he told me before he left.
I had finished eating my mediocre meal of ground-bean and pomit fruit when they came. The gods!
A great black point in the sky, shaped like the axes we use for chopping wood. A sky-boat. It landed near my field and the hatch inside opened.
The Great-Priest came out to meet it. Bowing before it, his fellow priests burning incense and offering fresh fruits and beans. Lots of beans, for protein.
A creature stepped out. It had three blades on its head, four on its arms, two on its legs, and two spikes on the back of its tail. Its dark skin was course and leathery. Its legs were much like ours, bent back and jointed in three spots.
So, this is a god, I thought.
Beside it came more of these creatures. And massive bloated worms, with pincer-like claws, standing erect on tiny feet. Tongues pulsated in and out of their mouths of rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Gods? They must be, to have ridden on the Sky-Boat. But, my, they were unusual.
Like the priest, myself and my fellow farmers kneeled before the visitors.
"Great gods, we come before thee," the Great-Priest said, his voice shaky, but respectful.
The bladed gods spoke in an odd rhetoric amongst themselves. Then one of them walked forward, toward the priest. He kneeled before their great bladed feet.
One of the gods grabbed him. He said a few odd words, and then pulled the priest up.
"You want to take me on your Sky-Boat to the Heavens?" the priest stammered.
The gods walked him silently into their Sky-Boat, then the hatch closed, and the priest was gone.
I looked at Bellir, my friend and companion. "What are the gods doing with him?"
"Teaching him a better way," was all he said.
"Ah."
After what seemed like forever, the Great-Priest returned, one of the bladed creatures at his sides.
"Change is upon us," he said, spreading his arms wide. "The gods have come!"
I came forward. "How shall we address the gods?"
"The bladed creatures are Hork-Bajir. The worms are Taxxons. Together, they are all called the Yeerks."
