Well, what is it? Visser Three demanded.
"We - we don't know, Visser," one of the techs said, fearful of his reaction.
Disgusted, Visser Three turned away from the techs clustered around the pod, and so he didn't see them slit it open. The translucent liquid spilled over the forest floor, seeping quickly into the ground and disappearing. The techs stared at the figure in the pod, since it seemed to be a human like their hosts.
There were no plants like this on Earth, they knew, so how did a human end up inside this pod? That was the question that they were all trying to answer, when Visser Three came back to where they were standing. The Visser had gotten impatient with how his technicians seemed to be doing nothing more than standing around looking at the pod.
When he cocked his tail back, intending to decapitate one of his incompetent servants, he noticed what was inside the pod. Lowering his tail, Visser Three stepped closer for a better look. Blinking, Visser Three tried to convince himself that he was not seeing what he was seeing. That it was just some trick of his longing.
All this time? He was clinging to the outside of my ship, for all this time? Visser Three didn't know what to make of it. When one of the technicians tried to get his attention, Visser Three snapped his tail and severed the man's head without even a look his way. He wanted to see his old host closer.
You and you, pick him up, the Visser ordered.
The two Human-Controllers did as they were told, lifting the human-looking creature from the broken pod. Visser Three had to admit that the Navari looked a lot different from when the Visser had last seen him. For a start, the other was not wearing his trademark black tunic and loosefitting pants.
In fact, as the Visser let his gaze flick over the rest of the Navari's body, Visser Three saw that he wasn't wearing anything at all. Stepping closer, the Visser saw that the Navari was coated with some kind of transparent fluid. Rubbing his thumb across the Navari's right cheek, the Visser found that the fluid was seemingly evaporating.
What is this alien that he interests you so much, Yeerk? Alloran intruded.
He is powerful. Now shut up!
None of the Human-Controllers heard this, since the Visser did not project his thoughts, and Alloran could not. The Navari seemed to be dead, and the Visser turned his attention to the pod that had been clinging to his Blade ship.
It was biological, that much was clearly observable. But, what was the function of the pod beyond simply acting as a deep-space transport? Visser Three stepped closer, just as the two techs dropped the Navari almost on top of the pod. The Visser's stalk eyes snapped around to pin the offending technicians with a cold glare.
He considered killing one or both of them for distracting him, but decided to merely ignore them. The pod held his attention now. Even broken open, with the Navari lying on top of it, the pod was a remarkable sight. It was purple-red in color, and looked almost like an Earth plant called a Venus flytrap.
Visser Three wondered if it ate like one as well. Suddenly Alloran, who had been waiting until the Visser was distracted, lunged for the Dracon beam strapped to his waist. Visser Three was still a bit preoccupied with what was in front of him, so he wasn't able to completely control Alloran's actions like he normally did.
Alloran fired, dead center into the Navari's lower back. Visser Three managed to regain control before Alloran could destroy the body. But when the bright light cleared, he saw that his host had managed to damage it. The flesh of the Navari's back had been badly charred; the wound was even so deep that his spine was visible.
Leaning over to inspect the body, Visser Three found that even if the Navari had been alive, he would have been crippled. The nerves around the base of his spinal cord had been completely burned away, and two of the spinal disks had been fused together. Visser Three was seething.
How dare Alloran try to destroy something that meant so much to him?!
It was because he meant so much to you that I attempted to destroy him, Yeerk.
What?!
He is powerful, you said so yourself. Too powerful for you to control, given the fact that you are no longer inside his head, Alloran was practically laughing now. I was really doing you a favor.
Oh, so you were doing me a favor, were you? Visser Three asked, his voice a deadly purr.
Alloran had been getting a bit too cocky, having successfully moved his left arm, and with the added bonus that he was able to fire a Dracon beam while he was at it. But even Alloran knew when not to push his luck. Visser Three was angry, and Alloran had been with the Yeerk long enough to know that that was a Very Bad Thing.
Visser Three decided that he would deal with Alloran later, now he had to deal with the Navari. What did humans do with their dead? He decided to ask one of his techs, since their hosts were human, after all.
What does your host's species do when one of its members dies, Irin?
Irin turned his host back to face the Visser when he was addressed. Wiping his hands off on his pants, he started to speak.
"The humans would normally bury a member of their species that had died. Though some of them burn the body."
Visser Three considered what Irin had just said. He didn't really want to do any more damage to the Navari's body than what had already been done. So he chose to have his techs bury the body. When he told them this, they got to work silently, despite having nothing to work with but their hands.
Once they had made a deep enough hole, the techs put the Navari's body back in his pod. It had just, felt right to have him in there. And the techs had said that humans used a container called a casket to hold the bodies of their deceased, though this had been sometime earlier, and at the time Visser Three had not known what to do with the knowledge. Maybe the pod could be his casket. Once they were done, none of his techs wanted to be the one to break the silence that had descended on the group. They all boarded the Blade ship again, and Visser Three idly wondered if things could have been different…