Teresa's mood, as she lay in her cage on the following day, was not the sunniest it had ever been. It happened to be a Sunday, and attending Mass as the unwilling slave of a cheerfully pagan alien parasite was not one of Teresa's favorite things to do. (She could remember a time, a few years before, when Sundays and holy days had been the high points of her week; now, she looked forward to them with something like dread.)
And, of course, the events of the previous Thursday had done nothing to improve matters. Indeed, Malcar, inspired by the gospel reading, had spent nearly the entire hour reflecting on what a shame it was that Teresa had made that terrible faux pas with Toloth, and how unlikely it now was that she would ever get another chance to "testify to the light" to the worthy Gef Makkil. What had made this particularly disagreeable was that Teresa fully believed Malcar to be right.
So all that Teresa wanted to do, now, was curl up in her cage, close her eyes, and shut out the rest of the world, and it was with a good deal of annoyance that she heard a kind of metallic twanging and realized that someone was banging on the bars of her cage. She opened her eyes and looked up wearily – and then her jaw fell open as she recognized the figure in front of her.
"Toloth?" she whispered.
"Listen to me, human," said the Hork-Bajir-Controller. "There are a few rules we will be observing from now on. In the first place, you will answer only the questions that I put to you, and not attempt to inject your own attempts at profundity. In the second place, you will not discuss this conversation with any of your fellow hosts, and you will encourage your Controller, if she knows what is good for her, to keep silent about it as well. In the third place, I don't care what your name is; you are 'human' so far as I am concerned. Is that clear?"
It is, perhaps, a violation of the hagiographer's code to mention that Teresa's immediate emotion, on hearing this, was a rather uncharitable gratification that someone, at least, was in an even worse mood than she was. Nonetheless, it is the truth.
"Perfectly," she said.
"Good," said Toloth. "Now. The last time we spoke, you told me that your god Jesus became a human because humans were sinful. Explain to me, please, how the two things are related."
Teresa had to think about that for a moment. She had accepted the fact of Christ's redemptive suffering for as long as she could remember, but she had never really concerned herself with the reason for it, and every exegesis she'd ever read on the subject had only served to confuse her.
"Perhaps I should have mentioned," said Toloth, after a few seconds had passed, "that I will be expecting your answers to be prompt, as well as to the point. My time is quite valuable to me, and…"
"Okay, okay," said Teresa. "How do you usually get rid of sin?"
This wasn't at all how she had expected to begin. She had been thinking, when Toloth interrupted her, of Robert Farrar Capon's theory that perverted creation can only be sanctified by a completely unperverted priest – a bit of mysticism which would likely have made little impact on the ruthlessly practical being in front of her. At the last moment, though, a completely different and far vaguer glimmer of thought occurred to her, and spilled out her mouth without her conscious volition.
Toloth seemed to be as surprised as she was. "What?" he said.
"How do you get rid of sin?" Teresa repeated, with a decision that would have convinced any observer that she knew what conclusion she was leading towards. "Come on, it's a simple question."
"I was under the impression that I was asking the questions," said Toloth.
"If you answer me this one, I won't ask you another one," said Teresa. "Now come on. How do you get rid of sin?"
Toloth sighed; it seemed to him that the initiative was slipping from his grasp once again. "A Yeerk philosopher," he offered reluctantly, "once said that every wrong thing done requires a right thing done as well, and every injury inflicted on another requires an injury inflicted on oneself."
It crossed Teresa's mind that it was typical of a Yeerk to jump straight to expiation without even discussing repentance, but she kept that observation to herself. "Okay," she said. "So sin carries a price with it, right?"
"Is that another question?" said Toloth, his eyes narrowing.
"Um, no, not really," said Teresa. "That's a statement. Sin carries a price."
"All right."
"And the price gets bigger the more sins you commit," said Teresa. "A lifetime of theft requires more expiation than a single candy bar swiped from a checkout counter when you were twelve. So you can just imagine what the cost is when you add together all the sins that have ever been committed, or ever will be committed, anywhere."
Toloth inclined his head wordlessly.
"It's a lot more than a human being can pay," said Teresa. "Or even all the human beings in the world put together. The only one who could pay a price like that would be God – but if God paid it, it wouldn't mean anything, since it's humans who incurred the cost, and it's humans who have to pay it." She hesitated. "That is, humans and Yeerks… and Andalites… and Hork-Bajir, I guess…"
"Sellthee," said Toloth.
Teresa blinked. "What?"
"The word you are searching for is sellthee," said Toloth. "Sentient beings that dominate their planets."
"Oh," said Teresa. "Is that Galard?"
"Yeerkish," said Toloth. "Coined by Akdor One-One-Five-Four shortly after the beginning of the Andalite War."
This didn't strike Teresa as a recommendation for the term, but she decided to live with it for the time being. "Okay, fine," she said. "Sellthee incurred the cost, so it had to be sellthee who paid it. But only God was even capable of paying the cost, so it had to be God who paid it. So there was only one way to solve the problem."
Here she paused, waiting for Toloth to finish the thought. She had, however, forgotten about Toloth's newfound determination not to get drawn into dialectic with her. Instead of responding, the Yeerk soldier simply stared at her for a number of seconds, and then prompted, "Yes?"
"Um… God had to become a sellthee," Teresa said.
She wanted to kick herself. It seemed like such an inadequate way of expressing the central mystery of her faith, and it was only made worse when Toloth corrected her grammar. "A sellith, you mean," he said. "Sellthee is plural."
"Oh," said Teresa, flushing. "Right."
There was another pause.
"Is that all?" Toloth inquired.
Teresa sighed. "Yeah, I guess so," she said. "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ; who suffered for our salvation, descended into Hell, rose again on the third day from the dead. This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved."
And having given this remarkable abbreviation of the Athanasian Creed, she sank back down onto the floor of her cage and shut her eyes, and Toloth, perceiving that there was no further point to his remaining, rose and walked silently away.
«Well, my little gelathiir,» he said silently, «does that satisfy your craving for "beginning things"?»
But Gef's mind was still processing Teresa's last remark. «Saved?» he said. «Gef Makkil not saved if he not believe Jesus?»
«That's what the human said,» said Toloth.
«Then Gef believe,» said the Hork-Bajir with an air of decision. «What Gef do if he believe?»
«What?» said Toloth, with a sudden sinking feeling.
«What Gef do if he believe Jesus?» Gef repeated.
«How should I know?» Toloth demanded. «Do I look like a student of human religions?»
The correct answer, given Toloth's recent activities, would probably have been "Yes", but Gef did not bother to give it. «Teresa know,» he said. «Teresa believe. We go back three days, Teresa teach Gef how to believe.»
Toloth wanted to scream. No host body is worth this, he thought.
But then he saw an image of himself sent back to the ranks of Gedd-Controllers – or, worse, quasi-Controller of the mindless appetite of a Taxxon – and he knew, even as he cursed himself for the weakness, that he would suffer countless humiliations rather than accept that fate. He was a slave to his own ambition, and the fact that he fully realized it made things no easier.
«All right,» he said. «Three days. Fine. And then again three days after that, I suppose. You and the human Teresa can make a regular ritual out of it, if you like. After all, it isn't as though I have any particular life of my own to lead. I can find perfect contentment just shuttling my host in and out of the Sulp Niar pool so he can become a more perfect professor of the Jesus cult. Nothing would please me more.»
Hork-Bajir do not generally have a finely developed sense of irony. The only thing Gef picked up from this impassioned speech was the basic idea that Toloth had acceded to his request, and so he responded, with perfect simplicity, «Good.»
And Toloth fumed in silence all the way back to the Sub-Visser's Bug fighter.