The Yeerk spent the time listening to Billy Gilman's "One Voice" CD, waiting for my mother and brother to go to sleep. Yes, I know, you probably think I'm the biggest loser in the world for liking country music (Jake himself had once said that he didn't have any qualms about my being gay, but the country music had to go). But some of the messages in the young singer's songs used to make me feel a little bit less lonely. I guess they still did, in a way, even though now my loneliness was due to a different type of isolation.
He liked the music too. He wasn't going to readily talk about it, but it was clear from my contact with his emotions that he liked /something/ about laying in the dark of my room, hands behind my head, listening to the soft, smooth voice of the artist cutting softly into the silence. I had the irrational thought that he was listening to songs about partnership and togetherness as his own aloof way of making peace after the fight we'd had.
I could almost have been happy with him. But it's kind of hard to feel a sense of peace with someone who still keeps you as a slave. Hard to accept an outstretched hand that's still, metaphorically speaking, holding a gun.
Finally the time had come — the Yeerk's hunger was starting to bother him too much to wait any longer. He shucked off my clothing — leaving my underwear on this time — and began morphing. The first time he did it the underwear slipped right off the slimming eagle waist, but he reversed the morph and tried again, and the second time the fabric started to meld in with the appearing feather patterns across my skin.
It was a small relief to know that I'd have some small shred of dignity left when I was standing on the infestation pier. «Thank you,» I said softly, acknowledging that the Yeerk had at least done /something/ for my benefit.
He didn't respond at first. Finally he said, «Hey, just don't tell Tom about it, okay? I don't need Exas thinking I'm getting host-happy.»
Host happy. What the Yeerks call a Yeerk whose attachment to his, hir, or her host has become something other than professional. (Yeerks have three genders, unlike most species — I always thought it must be cool to have three parents, until I learned that parent-Yeerks literally die in the act of procreation. Each trio creates an entire new subpool of Yeerks, almost a thousand. However, because of the mortality of birthing, only about three in three hundred Yeerks actually procreate in their lifetime. My Yeerk refused to tell me whether he was a boy, girl, or "mixer", so I'd just taken to calling him a boy because /I/ was a boy, and my body was his.) It was distinctly shunned behaviour in Yeerk society, particularly Visser One's branch of it. Host bodies were always to be considered sub-Yeerk.
I could understand that. The Council of Thirteen needed to justify to the people that what it was having them do — conquer species after species — was justified. So by making their hosts unequal, inferior to them, they could justify controlling them.
I wished I couldn't understand. But in this respect, Yeerks were acting almost human. Humans had those thoughts all the time — about blacks and women at one point, and about children right up until the present.
It did my heart good to know that the human rebels were all children. It meant that, if we humans did win this war, the adults of the world would finally have to acknowledge that experience, while undoubtedly important, did not by itself dictate who was a valid person with rights and who needed to be "protected" by having others do their thinking for them.
«I won't tell,» I assured my Yeerk. Then I took it a step further. «You know, I can't say everything about having you in my head is bad. I certainly object to you having total control over us, but you can be good company sometimes. If things were different… who knows? Maybe we could even have been friends.»
The Yeerk half-laughed. «I doubt it,» he said, trying to put up the tough Yeerk act. But I knew differently. I could feel that my words had touched him, made him feel a little bit better. Which meant that some part of him, at least, felt guilt about what he was doing to me.
Into the school cafeteria we went, through an open window. Across to the boys' locker room. We demorphed there and the Yeerk opened up my locker and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to supplement the underwear we'd morphed. Then we went into the Yeerk pool through the urinal entrance, and stepped up to the feeding pier. The screams of the human and Hork-Bajir in the background were long-since faded out to both me and my Yeerk, but I noticed them a little bit more this time. Which meant that he was focusing on them a bit more.
"Morph-capable involuntary," he announced to the Hork-Bajir at the pier as he stepped up to the back of the line.
"Iglaash, need stun?" the Hork-Bajir asked, his leathery hand going to his Dracon Beam.
The Yeerk shook my head. "Ramonite Box Seven." My head turned left, and I noticed a row of gray boxes lined up behind the cages in that area. One of those was to be my home for the next hour.
There were three hosts in line in front of us — a Hork-Bajir female, who bellowed quite loudly when her Yeerk dropped into the pool, a human male, who went over to the section for voluntary Controllers after depositing his Yeerk, and a human female child, who curtsied to the Hork-Bajir politely after she was freed and then ran like hell until one of them snagged her and tossed her in a cage.
My turn came. My Yeerk leaned down over the pier and bent my head over the sludge. «See you soon,» he said, before I felt him squiggling along out my ear canal. And then I turned my eyes upwards towards the Hork-Bajir guards.
/I/ turned my eyes. By my own will. I stood up and flexed my hands, glancing between one and the Hork-Bajir. An idea popped into my head, the first I'd had in three days that wasn't shared by the Yeerk. I decided to give it a try.
I allowed the Hork-Bajir to escort me towards the Ramonite box. But just before getting in I placed my hand on a Hork-Bajir flank and concentrated, the way I'd felt my Yeerk concentrate at the Gardens. Sure enough, the Hork-Bajir's head drooped for just a second and I felt the tingle in my finger, as the DNA of the creature entered my bloodstream.
Then his fellow guard closed the Ramonite box, and I turned my head to see Tom, curled up in a corner and crying.
There was no time for comfort or formality. My Yeerk would know as soon as he was back in my head, what I'd done. "I just acquired the Hork-Bajir," I told Tom. "Maybe I can morph him and slash us out of here."
Tom stopped sobbing uncontrollably just long enough to tap the side of the box. "The next one has a morph-capable Hork-Bajir in it. He's been bellowing for ten minutes now. The cage holds him."
I sighed and sank to my knees next to him. "So much for that idea," I muttered.
There was silence for a few moments. "I hit him," Tom mumbled.
"Huh?" I asked.
"I hit Jake. Slapped him across the face, twice, while the Hork-Bajir held him down."
I shook my head. "Your /Yeerk/ hit Jake. You didn't. Wouldn't."
Tom shook his head, wiping his tears away. "I was so mad at him."
I raised my eyebrow. "Why?"
"He knew. He /had/ to have known, for more than a year, what I was. What was inside my head." Tom sniffled. "All that time, I thought I was alone--"
"He did the right thing," I pointed out. "The Yeerks would have been after him the second he freed you or told you."
Tom shook his head, wiping his tears on his sleeve one more time. But he was under control again. "I know that, I really do. It's just.. part of me wishes it had been different. I could have been there for him, helped him. We could have done it together." Now that he wasn't broken or crying, he was mad. He slammed a fist against the box and screamed. "DAMN! I just wish we weren't on different sides! I wish the Yeerks weren't making me work against him!"
I shrugged, trying to stay optimistic, and enjoying the fact that I /could/ shrug. "I know Jake. I know whatever help the Yeerks get from /my/ brain is going to be no match for him. And as hard as it is to imagine what he's been going through out there, at least he's never been a Controller."
Now it was Tom's turn to shrug, nodding. "I guess. I'd hate to think of him having a Yeerk in his head. Especially not the /first/ Yeerk I had, the one who died at the hospital. /He/ was sadistic. My current Yeerk is peaceful by comparison."
Talking about my Yeerk's kind treatment was on the tip of my tongue, but I remembered my promise. Instead I changed the subject. "How are your parents taking it? Have you seen them, since..?"
Tom seemed almost like he might cry again. "My mom just kind of stares blankly. I think it's all been a bit much for her. My dad hugged me tightly and said he understood that it was my Yeerk, not me, that did this to us. He said he was proud of me for staying sane this long and sorry that he hadn't noticed the signs." Tom paused a moment and, with a flicker of a smile, added, "He also said how proud he was of Jake."
I nodded. "Yeah," I agreed. "Bet he's worried about him, though."
Tom swallowed a hard gulp, still fighting to keep his emotions in check. "When his Yeerk started passing out the photos with Jake's description for the other Yeerks to memorize, my dad fought him for control three times. Once he even succeeded in knocking his own head into the wall, almost knocked himself out. Anything to keep his son safe."
I shrugged. "The description is pretty much useless. Jake can look like anyone he can touch, after all."
Again, the flicker of a smile. "Yeah," Tom conceded, "I guess that's true. He's way more experienced at morphing than anyone the Yeerks have, including us. And he's got some pretty dangerous ones."
After that we said nothing to each other for awhile. He kept glancing over to me, like he wanted to say something, then frowning. Finally, he said, "My Yeerk received new orders tonight."
I shrugged. "What'd they say?"
He frowned. "I'm supposed to take my group along with another sub-group to guard some National Guard tanks that are coming in by train. The Yeerks are going to be mass-infesting National Guard troops."
I let out a long sigh. "Beginning of the end, huh?"
Tom nodded. "Doesn't look good. Another group's working in the Capitol. They've infested the Governor's husband and they're planning on going after her next week, too."
I bit my lip. "Checkmate," I said darkly. "Still, Jake and his group might be able to stop some of it, right?"
Tom rolled his eyes. "Just them?"
I put my hand on his shoulder. "Hey. It's been just them for a long time, in case you haven't realized. Just them who stopped that banquet with the world leaders. Just them who ruined the arctic Kandrona project. Just them who had and probably still have a whole colony of free Hork-Bajir out there somewhere."
Tom nodded. "You're right. You're right. I have to have faith in them." He smirked. "It's just tough when one of them's my little brother, y'know? I always used to call him
'Midget'. Even after he got taller. Just a little goofball."
I grinned. "I imagine you'll be taking him more seriously from now on?"
Tom shook his head. "Nah. After the week or two in which I do nothing but hug him twenty-four seven, I'll go back to pestering him." We looked at each other for a second and then we both giggled.
"Have hope, Tom. You've got someone out there who knows what you're going through and cares. The last thing he'd want is to think you'd given up."
Tom was about to reply, but the cage was opened and a Hork-Bajir head was glaring at us. "Come. Now."
We both got up and wordlessly got in line on the infestation pier. "Well," I said, wanting to make small talk while my voice was still my own, "Talk to you in three days, I guess."
Tom looked back at me and gave me a sad sort of smile. "I'm sorry you're going through this," he said, "but if I have to be here, I'm glad I'm not alone."
I smiled back at him. "Never, man. You're never alone."
"That's the problem," he joked, placing his ear with little resistance into the sludge of the Yeerk pool. Moments later he stood up, once again a prisoner in his own mind.
It was my turn. I sighed a last, deep breath, trying to hold on to the memory of breathing by my own will. And then I kneeled down and reluctantly placed my head inside the sludge. I felt the tip of the slimy thing on my ear, pushing in. It had long past the point where it actually hurt — my ear was used to this treatment now. The Yeerk slithered slowly in, paralyzing me bit by bit as he reconnected himself to the neurons in my brain.
«Hello,» I said, trying to sound kind of jovial. The first thing the Yeerk did was run through my new memories, from my acquisition of the Hork-Bajir DNA until the moment I knelt down over the sludge.
«Acquiring the Hork-Bajir was not smart,» he chided, «but I'll let it go since you remembered your word.» He stood my body up and started me walking back down the infestation pier. «Interesting new orders,» he commented.
«I suppose,» I said, running through the memories myself. I liked to dwell for awhile on whatever actions I took while my Yeerk was swimming in the pool. Those memories of freedom, even the limited freedom of a holding cell, were almost addictive at some points.
The Yeerk took me through the procedure in reverse, climbing up to the boys' locker room and stripping me down to my underwear. He started towards the cafeteria, but there was some kind of event going on in there now. So he walked me, in my underwear, out of the school and into the schoolyard behind the trees. I'd have been a little more apprehensive about it if it were daytime, but it was still disconcerting.
«It's safer than the school,» my Yeerk reminded me, whilst forcing us to shift and change. Strange, how I'd already gotten used to the reality of morphing in just under a day. I guess it's because it wasn't really /my/ power. Just one more thing the Yeerk did without my consent or consultation.
We flew up into the night, but we didn't stay in the air long.
Suddenly our left wing was clipped! "Tseeeeer!" the cry came, and I saw out of the corner of the eagle's eye the outline of a red-tailed hawk.
«Rebels!» my Yeerk cried, his thought-speak voice blaring out loud.
«That's right, Yeerk,» a human boy responded. It wasn't Jake's voice, but it had the kind of commanding authority I'd expect of a leader. «C'mon, guys, let's take him!»
The Yeerk flapped my wings like mad to keep his altitude, but the hawk was joined by a horned owl and two other red-tails. I was suddenly quite sure of it — I was going to die. I was going to be casualty to a war I'd never wanted to be a part of, killed by the people I was praying would win it.
Note to Alanis - /That/ is ironic.