#19 – Broken
Shelt 422 felt the vibration go through the liquid in his small working pool and headed to the infestation point. He was a Grader, First Class, which meant he was the last line of defense between his brother Yeerks and defective hosts. The Junior Graders who initially tested hosts were usually adept at their jobs, with Shelt being little more than an insurance policy.
He felt the familiar sensation of a human ear in his pool and quickly and expertly slithered inside. As he made contact with the brain and the senses lit up – sight, smell, hearing – he worked to not be overwhelmed. Even with only fifteen minutes of rest in his natural state between hosts, the sudden influx of sensory input was always borderline overpowering.
He quickly and efficiently took control of the human, ignoring the whining. Humans always thought they could get out of the mess they'd found themselves in by whining and begging – quite tiresome, really. Shelt ordered the Hork-Bajir guard to release him and began his physical examination.
Fingers – ten of them, all in working order. Flexibility of this host was a level nine – a good indicator that the host was young and in good physical condition. Shelt reached out the arms to the pressure bar beside his pool and noticed they were heavily muscled, but was still impressed when the readout on the machine came back at 8.33 – the host he was currently occupying was able to apply almost five hundred Earth pounds of force using only his arms and chest muscles.
He began to run on the piece of human equipment known as a treadmill. The device was connected to a Yeerk computer for all sorts of technical data, but that was information for the Host Technicians. Shelt's only concern was that this human could sprint for three minutes without suffering anything physically detrimental. While he did this, he began to search the mind he now occupied for his mental test.
Intelligence was a level seven – above average, but unremarkably so. All of the neural pathways seemed to conduct electricity like they were supposed to. Shelt had almost moved on to the next phase of his mental examination before a warning bell went off in his own mind. The brain had conducted the minor electrical pulses he'd put out very efficiently…almost too efficiently…
Shelt searched the mind as the body ran flat-out on the treadmill. As he accessed different portions of the hosts brain – memory, impulse, behavioral reactions – he began to notice a trend of barriers. They weren't unbreakable barriers…more like soft, tricky areas that constantly wanted him to stay away. Nothing here, don't bother looking, they seemed to whisper. Apparently, the Junior Graders had been swayed by the persuasive qualities of the barriers, but Shelt could not afford to be. He broke through, and what he found was a grim disappointment.
Personality after personality were compartmentalized and hidden throughout the mind. Not just hidden from an intruder like Shelt; hidden from each other, as well. Shelt stopped the physical run test in disgust.
"Why did you stop? The test still has one minute and ten seconds," the Hork-Bajir assistant asked Shelt in Galard.
Shelt's explanation was a lot more callous than a human doctor's would have been. A human doctor might have pronounced the human afflicted with multiple personality disorder. Even a good controller would have trouble with this disorder, which the Yeerks viewed as a human's natural defense against a mental intruder. It would be like trying to control ten hosts at once. Or twenty. However many personalities this human had inside of him. If the controller got complacent in having control over one of the minds, and the human's brain switched personalities too quickly to notice…and if it did so in a place where other humans might notice a host suddenly regaining control from its controller…unacceptable risk.
Shelt's callous explanation was perfect, in terms of a Yeerk perspective. He simply shrugged at the Hork-Bajir and said, "This one is broken. Get rid of it." He left his host, back into his pool, and thought smugly, Where would this invasion be without me?
A/N – Thank you for the reviews, and this is exactly why I need them! I thought I was being clever with a "misdiagnosis" for schizophrenia, but it didn't come off like I wanted to at all. Once I re-read, I realized that all of you are very right – there's no reason an omniscient narrator would try to act like he/she didn't know humans well enough to know the difference, so good catch, everybody…and thank you again!