Toloth took an unusually long time to traverse the length of the Yeerk pool and rejoin his fellow guards. He knew that the Sub-Visser would not be pleased to find him missing so long, but somehow he could not make this knowledge real to himself; there was so much else to think about.
What he had said to Teresa, that no Hork-Bajir would ever have thought of the doctrine of the Trinity, was quite true, but it was largely a cover for the real issue, which was that Toloth felt uncomfortably sure that no Yeerk would have ever thought of it, either. This disturbed him greatly, as he was accustomed to thinking of his people as the natural overlords of the galaxy, and of all other races (with the possible exception of the Andalites) as so much livestock to be caught and exploited.
His anticipation of his talk with Teresa had been colored by this assumption. He had expected to hear simplistic myths of all-powerful figures who were obviously ill-disguised personifications of natural forces (akin to the Hork-Bajir stories of Mother Sky and Father Deep), and Teresa's mention of angels had seemed to him to fully justify these expectations – and then she had gone and stuck him with a concept so logical, so elegant, so dapsenly sophisticated, that it made the most profound conceptions of his own people's greatest thinkers seem banal and trivial by comparison.
He tried to tell himself that it was of no consequence, that the most incongruous survivals could be found in any culture's mythology, but it was no use. Logic kept forcing his mind back to a simple, necessary alternative: either the doctrine Teresa had just espoused was a creation of the human mind, or humans had gotten it from elsewhere. If the former, then the Yeerk invasion of Earth was based on a false principle, for it held that humans were weak-minded, easily-gulled simpletons, not a philosopher-race of such wisdom and shrewdness that it could scarcely be equaled anywhere in the galaxy. If the latter, that didn't mend things much, since a race has to be fairly intelligent even to receive such a concept; a Hork-Bajir, for instance, could never have processed it. (Toloth verified this last assertion with a quick glance at Gef's higher-thought centers; they showed fairly clearly that Teresa's explication of the Three-in-One had made no impact whatsoever on the young Hork-Bajir.)
And where could they have gotten it from, anyway? Either from some wandering philosopher from another world, such as a Skrit Na – which seemed to Toloth unlikely – or from… well, from the Being that they claimed it was from. There was really no third alternative.
"And what of us, then?" he murmured. "If humans are a race of either sages or prophets, what will become of the race that attempts to enslave them?"
This disturbing reflection so preoccupied his mind that he failed to look where he was going, and thus he did not see his fellow guardsman, Lissim Seven-One-Three, until he nearly collided with him.
"Whoa, careful, Toloth!" said Lissim with a chuckle (in Galard, of course). "Watch those blades! You're not a Gedd-Controller anymore, remember!"
"Oh," said Toloth, blinking. "My apologies."
"Where have you been, anyway?" said Lissim. "You've been gone for over an hour; the Sub-Visser's practically breathing fire."
"I…" Toloth began, and then hesitated, trying to figure out a description of his activities that Lissim would find comprehensible and not unduly alarming. "I was observing the human hosts," he said finally.
"Ah," said Lissim, with a knowing look on his face. "Of course. The eternally ambitious Toloth Two-Nine-Four, always seeking a leg up on the competition."
"Precisely," said Toloth.
"Well, I'm glad you've decided to finally rejoin us, at any rate," said Lissim, as the two of them turned back towards the pavilion where the Sub-Visser's entourage waited. "Though I dare say you'll be scurrying back there as soon as you spot an opportunity."
"I shall return, yes," said Toloth, with a backward glance at the young woman who was being dreamily escorted to the pier.
"In three days, I think, I shall return."