Toloth had no intention of ever returning to the human girl's cage. The sense of betrayal that he felt concerning her was passionate, consuming, and, to an outside observer, all but inexplicable. Here this twin-lobed primate had been leading him on, making him think all kinds of nonsense about her God and her religion, when all the time it had been nothing more than a front for the freedom-and-equality cant that host organisms always pulled out when they wanted to justify their stupid, instinctive resistance to their rightful masters. Well, a threefold dapsen to that.
It would be unfair to the Yeerk soldier to imply that this was, even now, the only thought in his mind. A more philosophical part of himself – the part that had been so impressed with Trinitarianism – was still quietly suggesting that Teresa did not seem like the sort of creature to build up an entire epistemology merely to justify her own willfulness, that it was quite possible for an idea to lead to certain conclusions without having been conceived in order to justify those conclusions, and that, in fact, the child's idea of goodness as something that necessarily suggested the possibility of evil was rather intriguing, and might very well be worthy of further consideration. This part, however, would not regain control of Toloth's mind for several feeding cycles. Right now, his rage, annoyance, and frustration at being made to feel a fool overwhelmed all his other sentiments – including his desire to attain advancement by acquiring knowledge of the human mind. He understood the human mind quite well enough, now.
And there the matter might have rested, had it not been for Gef Makkil. Toloth had very nearly forgotten that it was his host who had directed him towards Teresa Sickles in the first place, and he was, consequently, somewhat surprised when, at the end of a particularly tedious day of following the Sub-Visser around at a distance of three paces, Gef broke into his thoughts with a hesitant, «Toloth Two-Nine-Four?»
Toloth sighed. «Yes, Gef, what is it?»
«Today is second day from last talk with Teresa,» said Gef slowly, like someone working out an unusually intricate chain of logic. «Tomorrow is third day.»
«Ah,» said Toloth. «So the little Hork-Bajir has learned to do math now. Well, what about it?»
«We go back tomorrow?»
«No,» said Toloth firmly. «We do not go back tomorrow.»
Gef thereupon lapsed into a reverie that lasted several minutes, and Toloth was just beginning to let his mind drift to the upcoming Esiln Kalkat festival that the Sub-Visser was rumored to be planning when the young Hork-Bajir spoke again. «Then I go back tomorrow,» he said.
«Excuse me?» said Toloth.
«When you go to feed,» said Gef. «Gef Makkil kill guards, escape from Sub-Visser's pool. Then go to big pool, meet Teresa.»
If Toloth had had a jaw, it would have dropped. «You cannot be serious,» he said.
Even as he said it, though, a glance at Gef's thoughts assured him he was wrong. In three years of infestation, he had never seen his host so resolute.
«But see here, you great lummox,» he said, «don't you realize that no Hork-Bajir can defeat the entire Sub-Visserial Guard single-handedly?»
«Is not easy,» Gef admitted.
«Is utterly impossible, more likely,» said Toloth. «And once they've taken you down, do you suppose they'll let you off with a warning again? Remember, this will be your second escape attempt in two weeks – and pool guards don't like repeat offenders.»
«No,» said Gef. «If Yeerks capture, will kill. But Toloth Two-Nine-Four not want Gef Makkil dead.»
Toloth hesitated. «Well… no, of course not,» he said. «You're a superb physical specimen; it could take me half a cycle to find an equally satisfactory host body.»
«Then we go back tomorrow?»
Toloth was silent for a moment, as he digested the implications of those five words. «Do you mean,» he said at last, «that you will deliberately get yourself killed if I don't go and talk philosophy to a human juvenile tomorrow?»
«Yes,» said Gef simply. «Gef and Toloth meet Teresa tomorrow, or Gef die.»
And Toloth knew there was no way of stopping him. If there was one thing that terrified Sub-Visser One Hundred and Sixty-Three, it was the idea of host revolt; he would never consent to let a known renegade live just to make life easier on a subordinate. And once Gef was dead, Toloth's hope of ever making it into the second century went down the sulp-niar sieve; the way Hork-Bajir bodies were rationed, it would be a miracle if he remained in the Sub-Visser's guard.
Toloth groaned quietly to himself; there must really be something wrong with him. Bad enough to be bamboozled by the philosophical double-talk of a human, but to be strategically outmaneuvered by a Hork-Bajir…
«All right,» he said. «We will go back to Teresa's cage tomorrow. But could you please tell me, you great squamous imbecile, just why this human girl is so infernally important to you?»
Gef hesitated, and Toloth watched him attempt to put his half-felt emotions into coherent thoughts. «Teresa have knowledge of beginning things,» he said at last.
«Beginning things?» Toloth queried.
«Yes,» said Gef. «Things that make life, that know why things live. No point in living without knowledge of beginning things.»
«I see,» said Toloth. «And just what good does it do you to listen to Teresa talk about "beginning things", since you can't understand two consecutive words she says?»
«It does good,» said Gef firmly.
Toloth sighed. «Oh, have it your way,» he said.
«I do,» said Gef. «Tomorrow.»