"This one's finally showing sufficient levels of Delta brainwaves."
"About time. Subject 45H is over four months old already. Send it down for infestation."
One of the tall ones makes me walk down the hallway and out into the wide open space. Screaming, frightened voices fill the air, and it scares me. But the tall ones hold me by the arms so that I can't run, and they drag me to the center of the open space - over to the gray, sludge-filled pool. My head is forced down into the pool, there's a stinging sensation as something crawls up through my ear...
(Oh. They gave me an infant to work with,) a voice says from inside my head. A voice that is not my own. (Again. After they promised me I'd have something full-sized next time. Typical.)
My legs begin walking on their own. My head, my eyes, moving even though I didn't decide to move them. I try to keep my head still, to move my arms, my fingers, but I'm locked out and have no input on my own limbs. I can't so much as blink or breathe. Terrified, I try even harder, but something inside my head pushes back and hurts me.
(Hey. Get it through your thick little skull. This body is mine. Not yours. MINE. And I'm not giving it back, so you might as well just give up now.)
Eventually, my stolen body arrives at where the angry voice in my head wants to go. Then it opens my mouth, and uses my voice.
"Pentan 2401, reporting for duty..."
Days and nights pass, and the cruel voice in my head does not yield control for a moment, no matter how much I try to resist. Every waking moment is a blur of dark rooms, banks of computer consoles, and military communications that I do not understand. Just when I think it will never end, I find myself leaning back over the gray sludge, ear burning as something crawls out of it. By the time I have recovered enough to stand on my own, I'm already inside a cage.
There are a few more like me in the cage - bigger, older Hork-Bajir. Some of them talk to me, try to tell me as much as they can about our people in the few moments of time available before, one by one, we are dragged away to be reinfested. All too soon, my turn comes.
(You know, we did your people a favor,) the cruel voice says, as it scrapes and sifts through my memories, (You were just a bunch of ignorant savages. No technology, no machines, no writing... you barely even had a language at all. So primitive, you hadn't even discovered fire yet. Lucky for you the Yeerk Empire came along...)
And the pattern begins. For six days, the Yeerk uses my body to carry out some arcane function to facilitate the conquest of a planet I know nothing about. For six days, the contemptable slug inside my brain controls my every move - decides where to walk, what to say, when to eat, when to blink and breathe. Then, for a few hours, I get my body back, and the other Hork-Bajir try to teach me - try to remind themselves - that we are real people, not just convenient puppets for somebody else to use.
