By the time Toloth had mounted Teresa's bicycle and begun heading for the Sickles house, he had begun to wonder whether it mightn't have been wiser to leave Teresa in ignorance of his true identity. He had thought that his dramatic self-revelation would stun her into mental silence, and he would be able to comb her mind in peace for the information that would satisfy Gef and the izcots – but he had failed to reflect that this was Teresa Sickles he was dealing with. As soon as she had processed that her new Controller was the very Yeerk that she had been witnessing to for the past half-month, she had begun eagerly bombarding him with questions about how he had managed it, where Malcar was now, what the Sub-Visser was going to think, et cetera.
At first, Toloth had thought that this was mere, impudent curiosity on her part, and had resented the assumption (accurate though it was) that he was the sort of weak-willed Yeerk who would sooner satisfy a host's curiosity than malthalamize her for daring to address him. But then he noticed an undercurrent of anxiety running through her interrogation, and realized that there was something else going on – something, if possible, even more painful to the shred of Yeerk pride he had left. Somehow, in the course of the past few weeks, Teresa had begun to care intensely about him – had even begun, in some sense, to truly think of him as a friend.
Only a very limited sense, of course. She still had no interest in discussing her favorite books with him, or inviting him over for a game of Uno, or any of the other things that she remembered doing with her human friends. What she felt about him was subtly different; it seemed to Toloth almost to resemble self-interest, except that it wasn't directed towards the self. Teresa seemed to feel the same passionate concern about his well-being, and seemed ready to take the same unequivocal delight in it, that a sensible being did about its own.
It was a phenomenon that Toloth had never encountered in a host before. Even a Hork-Bajir, though he would willingly sacrifice himself for his tribe, would never have thought to feel concern for some other tribe in which he had no stake. Teresa, on the other hand, seemed to be making an effort to feel this way about every sentient being she knew; one of the dominant distress patterns in her mind was connected to the fact that she couldn't bring herself to feel it for Malcar. It was an enigma, to be sure – but it did explain a number of puzzling things about Teresa Sickles, and Toloth was quite willing to accept one enigma in place of half a dozen.
The difficulty was to know how to respond. Reciprocating the impulse was obviously impossible, since one couldn't simultaneously desire a being's welfare and continue to support a plan of conquest that involved robbing it of all that made life worth living. But if one failed to reciprocate the impulse, that was far worse, since the one quality that Yeerks honored above all (for obvious reasons) was strength of will; to observe a host making such a heroic act of will without apparent effort, and then to acknowledge by one's inaction that one dared not do the same, was tantamount to acknowledging that a host was worthy of greater honor than oneself – which was impermissible. The very existence of the impulse, in fact, presented a loyal Yeerk with an insoluble dilemma – which perhaps explained why Malcar Seven-Four-Five, that paragon of loyalty, seemed bent on eradicating it from Teresa's mind.
Toloth himself preferred to ignore it. (For the time being, at least. He knew, instinctively, that he would have to face the dilemma sooner or later, but a host of prudential considerations urged him not to do so now.) He had more practical matters to attend to; if he didn't start answering Teresa's questions soon, she might well work herself into a state of nervous prostration, and then it would be exceedingly difficult to draw the necessary information from her mind in the way he intended.
«I assure you, Teresa Sickles, neither Gef nor I am in any danger,» he said. «I have simply decided that my means of acquiring information from you have hitherto been inefficient and occasionally hazardous. I am therefore borrowing you from Malcar Seven-Four-Five for a single feeding cycle, so that I can absorb the data I need directly from your brain. Once I have finished, I will probably never need to contact you again – which will doubtless gratify you and your Controller as much as it does me.»
Teresa wasn't sure that anything short of Toloth and Gef both dropping dead would truly gratify Malcar, but she didn't suppose it would edify anybody for her to say so. «You're not going to tell me that Malcar agreed to this, though, are you?» she said. «I can't imagine…»
«No,» said Toloth, with a note of amusement tingeing his mental speech. «No, Malcar Seven-Four-Five certainly did not agree to this, nor did I waste my time on such a hopeless cause as persuading her to do so. But there are other ways of preventing someone from arriving at the infestation pier.»
Teresa wondered what that was supposed to mean. It couldn't mean that Malcar was dead, or permanently incapacitated, since Toloth had definitely said that she was going to be gratified when… or had he? Now that Teresa thought about it, all he had actually said was "you and your Controller"; could that mean…?
Toloth's voice interrupted her thoughts. «No, Teresa Sickles,» he said. «Malcar Seven-Four-Five is still your Controller; there is no reason to celebrate just yet.»
Teresa was stung; she had, in fact, been close to celebrating at the thought of Malcar's demise, but she hadn't quite admitted it to herself. Now that Toloth had said the word, though, she felt herself duly chastened, and sent up a quick prayer for forgiveness. This, of course, didn't escape the attention of her current Controller, who demanded to know why she was doing anything so irrational. «What is culpable in desiring Malcar Seven-Four-Five's demise?» he said. «She has, I should think, given you ample reason to believe that the universe would benefit from such an event.»
«Maybe it would,» Teresa acknowledged, «but I'm still not allowed to wish for it. Jesus told us to love our enemies; if I'm not at least trying to do that, I can't really call myself a Christian.»
There it was again, that bizarre imperative to make another's good your own – to love, as Teresa called it. (It was hardly the Yeerk sense of the word, but Toloth could handle that; he remembered the discussion they had had, three days before, about the peculiar senses that Jesus-worshippers gave to common words.) It was, Toloth admitted, a praiseworthy feat – but the question was, why? What did they stand to gain from it? What possible good could it do Teresa to take this Yeerk, who fervently believed that the subjugation of her and her race was a good and proper end wherewith to devote one's life, and act as though the two of them were adjacent spawn-mates?
It might have been supposed that, Toloth being now in direct contact with Teresa's mind, the answers to these questions would have been immediately apparent to him. And, indeed, he could quite plainly perceive what Teresa's answer would have been – but it was an answer that helped him not at all. Indeed, it was an answer he already knew – the answer that his host had heard, to the same question, nearly three weeks before – the answer that had thrown his subsequent life into such turmoil.
Because Jesus would want me to.
That was it. That was where Teresa Sickles began and ended every discussion. What Jesus said overruled all other considerations – not because it made sense to her, or because it would keep her safe, or even because she would be happy after her death if she did (although she did seem to believe this), but simply because Jesus was who – and what – he was. Without him, she could do nothing; if she had not him, she had not life; he had made her for himself, and her heart had no rest until it rested in him – there were a thousand variations on the theme in her mind, but what they all amounted to was that pleasing this minor claimant to the throne of deity was the only reason that Teresa knew for doing anything.
This was more than Toloth had been prepared to handle. He had gathered that Teresa viewed Jesus as the creator of the universe – yes, and also as a personal benefactor who was willing to give her some sort of "new life". So he had expected her to feel some measure of reasonable gratitude, expressed perhaps in some ritual observances of a symbolic nature: fasts, sacrifices, all the usual accoutrements of natural piety. But this total self-surrender was another matter entirely. Toloth had never heard of a god – apart from the truly savage ones, such as the "Thirst-Soul" of the pre-conquest Taxxons – who demanded such fidelity from his worshippers. And that someone like Teresa (whom no sane person could compare with a pre-conquest Taxxon) should gladly and whole-heartedly accept such an obligation… who could have imagined it?
Except, perhaps, Gef. Wasn't that what he had said, back at the beginning of it all? "Teresa have knowledge of beginning things. Things that make life, that know why things live." Toloth had dismissed it at the time, but, really… to know why things live… wasn't that what all sentient beings were looking for? Wouldn't Toloth himself have given everything he had – his host, his position, his very self – to know the reason for his existence? And Teresa, it seemed, thought that she had found it. Which made her attitude perfectly rational.
But this is absurd, Toloth wanted to say. You cannot possibly believe, you pitiful human child, that the ultimate power behind the universe would simply come and tell you what it wants of you. That would be kindly, and the universe is not kindly; it would be rational, and the universe is not rational. The universe is a mindless, soulless, utterly savage wilderness, and you of all beings have no excuse for not knowing it. Look at me: am I the product of a benevolent creator? Would your Jesus make a race of beings whose fulfillment lay in the subjugation of other beings? I think not.
For this he could find no answer in Teresa's mind. Teresa, as has already been noted, had often struggled with the problem of why God had made Yeerks; the few, hesitant solutions she had come up with – that their nature was a result of their Fall, for instance – were unsatisfactory even to her, and Toloth found them utterly laughable.
This gave some ease to his mind. He knew, of course, that there were weaknesses in every system of thought, and that this didn't necessarily make them untrue (Andalite harmonic theory had its vague spots, too, but you could still build Dracon beams with it), but, all the same, he was grateful to have found Christianity's weakness so quickly. If he hadn't, he might have had to start seriously considering it as the key to his own life – and that, of course, would have been completely unacceptable.
He became aware that Teresa had ceased to inquire about what had happened to Malcar. This was probably just as well; the less she knew, the less Malcar would know when she reinfested her.
He also became aware that he had reached Teresa's house – and that a large, black, furry creature with sharp teeth had leapt off the porch and was heading towards him at a great speed. For a moment, he was alarmed; then he noticed a minor memory of Teresa's that he had hitherto overlooked, and his alarm changed to mild annoyance. So humans kept large, predatory animals around their homes for companionship, did they? Someone might have warned him.
He stopped Teresa's bicycle, clambered awkwardly off the seat (Teresa had never mastered the art of dismounting in a ladylike fashion), and greeted the Sickles family schnauzer with a vigorous nuzzle behind the ears. "Hey there, Chris," he cooed. "Who's a good boy?"
Chris's tail wagged enthusiastically, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth as though it were detached from his jaw. Toloth was repelled, but he kept up the pretense long enough to seem like Teresa to anyone who might be watching; then he took up the bicycle again and wheeled it into the garage, with Chris trotting close at his heels.
As he leaned the bicycle against its usual wall, he became aware of a distinctive aroma wafting through the door to his immediate right. It wasn't as vivid as it would have been through Gef's nose (he had been mildly disappointed to find how weak the human olfactory sense was), but it was unmistakable, even so.
«So your mother is making Roman gnocchi, is she, Teresa?» he said.
«Yeah, I guess so.» Teresa sounded surprised. «Funny. She wouldn't usually make something that festive before Advent was over – unless we were having company, of course.»
Then she laughed. «But we are having company, aren't we?» she said. «Maybe some angel whispered into her ear this morning, "Word to the wise, Catherine: you're having a Sub-Visserial Guardsman over for dinner tonight. Better make something special."»
Toloth smiled quietly with Teresa's lips. For all her theological sophistication, Teresa Sickles was still very much a child in many ways.
«Well,» he said, «if I am, indeed, your guest of honor tonight, I suppose I ought to go in and pay my respects to my hostess.»
«Oh, sure,» said Teresa. «Don't call her "ma'am", though; she hates that. "Mrs. Sickles" will do fine.»
«I will bear that in mind,» said Toloth dryly.
He turned, and reached for the knob of the house door. Just as he was about to grasp it, though, he hesitated. A strange, almost superstitious thought had entered his mind, inexplicable and irrational, yet one that bore a strange conviction. For some half-dozen heartbeats, he stood motionless before the door, trying to dismiss the thought, yet only succeeding in impressing it more and more deeply upon his mind: Beware, Toloth Two-Nine-Four. If you enter this house, you will not leave it again without being transformed.
Teresa seemed puzzled. «Something wrong, Toloth?» she said.
Toloth roused himself. «No,» he said. «Nothing at all.»
He hummed a few bars of an old Yeerkish war-song to steady himself; then he turned the doorknob (more firmly than was perhaps warranted) and entered the home of Teresa Sickles.