*Malcar Seven-Four-Five to the infestation pier! Repeat, Malcar Seven-Four-Five to the infestation pier!*
At the sound of the high-pitched clicks that made up this announcement, Malcar Seven-Four-Five of the Sulp Niar pool turned and glided swiftly through the mass of her fellow Yeerks to the shallow area of the pool where her host was unwillingly waiting. With a practiced motion, she attached her palps to the rim of her host's ear, flattened out her small, wormlike body, and slid into the ear canal to make contact with the brain.
«Well, hello, dear,» she telepathed to her host. «Did you miss me?»
Teresa Sickles did not reply, but Malcar felt her entire consciousness tense up suddenly, and she heard her whispering, «Carry it two miles, carry it two miles…»
Malcar smiled to herself. She had been Teresa's Controller for the better part of three years, and had learned innumerable ways to get under her skin (besides the literal way that was her birthright). This had gotten her in trouble with her immediate superior, Sub-Visser One Hundred and Sixty-Three, who believed that hosts should be assuaged whenever possible lest they become difficult to handle, but she carried on regardless. The truth was that nothing Malcar did could so irritate Teresa as Teresa's tendency, when left alone, to accept her plight without complaint – or, worse, to "offer it up" – irritated Malcar.
«So what have you been up to lately?» she murmured, and plugged into her host's recent memories, expecting to find nothing more exciting than forty-five minutes spent playing tic-tac-toe in the dust of her cage floor. Instead, of course, she found the series of events recorded in the previous two chapters.
Her surprise was so pronounced that a faint perception of it leaked unbidden into Teresa's consciousness. She had always thought of her host as a quiet, introverted sort of creature, not someone in the least likely to start impromptu theological discussions with wild Hork-Bajir. Such newfound assertiveness was, to the Yeerk, almost alarming.
Nor was this the only cause Malcar found for alarm. For some time, she had felt that the Yeerk High Command on Earth had not been paying nearly enough attention to Earthly religion as a possible source of host resistance. The neglect was, perhaps, understandable; the only significant religion on the Yeerk homeworld was a rather laissez-faire sun-worship, and their only contact with sectarianism on Earth was the semi-cultic elements that the current Visser One had incorporated so successfully into the early Sharing, so it was naturally difficult for a Yeerk to grasp that organized supernaturalism could ever be a formidable enemy. Malcar, however, was not so sure; she had found data in Teresa's mind that suggested that her religion, at least, was fully capable of toppling empires if it objected to their behavior – and surely it would consider the conquest and enslavement of entire races objectionable. For a moment, therefore, the discovery that Teresa had attempted, however hesitantly, to propagate her faith among her fellow hosts caused Malcar something like terror.
It was, however, only for a moment. Another blink of the eye, and Malcar was herself again. «Well,» she said. «Been doing a spot of missionary work, have you?»
«Maybe,» said Teresa.
«Well, good for you,» said Malcar. «Maybe he'll be a little more docile after this. "Slaves, be submissive to your masters", and all that.»
Teresa did not reply, but her thoughts were plain for her Controller to perceive.
*Toloth Two-Nine-Four to the infestation pier! Repeat, Toloth Two-Nine-Four to the infestation pier!*
With a gesture that, had he been a human, would likely have been a sigh, Toloth detached himself from the sweetly nourishing waves of Kandrona flowing into his body, swam over to the pier, and slithered into his host's ear canal. He was one of the few Yeerks in the Sulp Niar pool who did not look forward to reinfestation; in the first place, he had never quite seen the allure of vertebrate senses that so intoxicated many of his pool-mates, and in the second place, he considered asserting dominance over his current host to be rather more trouble than it was worth.
He was aware, of course, that this was a flaw in himself. Had he been a different sort of Yeerk – someone, for instance, like Malcar Seven-Four-Five – he might have taken a positive pleasure in his host's futile struggles to resist his control. But, as things were, he didn't.
This should not be taken to suggest, however, that Toloth was a conspicuously gentle soul. On the contrary, he was in nearly all respects a highly competent warrior – so competent, in fact, that he had attained a position on Sub-Visser One Hundred and Sixty-Three's personal guard without having recourse to the bribery that was usually standard in such appointments. He was, in fact, rather like certain human soldiers who feel no qualms about shooting perfect strangers in the heat of battle, but who would have difficulty smacking their own dogs with rolled-up newspapers.
It was with some trepidation, therefore, that he made contact with Gef Makkil's mind, bracing himself for the onslaught of abuse and defiance that the young Hork-Bajir would certainly begin to hurl at him as soon as he felt him commandeer his faculties – and it was with a sense of startled relief that he realized that Gef was doing nothing of the kind. Gef's mind, in fact, seemed to be preoccupied with something else entirely, something with which Yeerk tyranny and Hork-Bajir pride had little, if anything, to do.
A more inquisitive Yeerk – someone, again, like Malcar Seven-Four-Five – would have instantly turned to Gef's memory centers and scrutinized them meticulously to determine the cause of this sudden change of attitude. Toloth, however, had long since fallen out of the habit of checking his host's recent memories, on the not unreasonable grounds that a Hork-Bajir's thoughts are rarely worth perusing, and so it did not occur to him to do so now; he simply thanked the Kandrona for small favors and applied himself to the task of regaining control over Gef's limbs.
He had already staggered to his feet, and was getting ready to walk away from the pier, when Gef's voice whispered inside his head, «Toloth Two-Nine-Four?»
Toloth was startled. Not only was the softness of Gef's tone totally unwonted, but this was the first time he had ever heard his host use his given name. Generally, when Gef addressed him, it was as "Yeerk", "Yeerk filth", "tuscad-ierig", or some even less socially acceptable variant on the theme.
«Yes?» he responded cautiously.
«Yeerks know about Jesus?»
Toloth was silent for a moment. This was just getting stranger and stranger.
«Perhaps some Yeerks do,» he said finally, «but I don't. What is it?»
«Being who makes worlds with words,» said Gef. «Yeerks, too. Loves like a father, and dies to make new creation.»
There was a pause as Toloth digested this enigmatic response.
«Really?» he said. «And where did you hear about this?»
Gef did not respond. He had retreated back into his own thoughts, and Toloth was loath to follow, lest he provoke his host out of his current and quite desirable placidity.
It occurred to Toloth that there might, after all, be some value in analyzing Gef's recent memories; possibly they would shed a light on what he had just said, or at least cast it into complete sentences. Accordingly, he plugged himself into Gef's mnemonic cortex, and there discovered, as near as a Hork-Bajir brain could retain it, the complete substance of his recent conversation with Teresa Sickles.
It would be too much to say that Toloth was intrigued. Yeerk soldiers are not conditioned to be intrigued by anything a host life-form says. He was, however, interested. Like most Hork-Bajir-Controllers, he aspired someday to be promoted to a human host body, and it seemed to him that his chances were that much greater if he could demonstrate some real knowledge of humans – of their passions, their fears, their thought processes, and, presumably, their beliefs. If he could meet with this young human, and prevail upon her to elaborate further – which seemed unlikely to be difficult, since this knowledge appeared to be something that it was incumbent upon her to share – then, the next time a prominent human was captured and Sub-Visser One Hundred and Sixty-Three glanced around his echelon for an appropriate Controller, Toloth Two-Nine-Four would have an indisputable advantage over his fellows – an advantage that just might prove insuperable.
Yes – he nodded to himself, pleased with his reasoning. Clearly, knowledge of this Jesus was the key to worldly advancement. All that remained was to acquire such knowledge – and so he determined, at the next possible opportunity, to have a nice long talk with Miss Teresa Sickles.