Kurtaz was an idiot.
I suppose in some ways it was better than Tergiv. For one thing, Kurtaz seemed to only want to do the base minimum required of a loyal Yeerk. In my little mind image, instead of seeing Kurtaz as a duplicate of myself, I saw him as a chubby, lazy couch potato type.
Tergiv was right about us not pretending at home anymore. Once we were all home, nothing was the same. Except Percran still cooked, since my mom was the one who knew how. Tergiv, however, could not help but torture me a little bit more. As Kurtaz moved to go into my room, Tergiv stopped us. My dad's body bent forward, and kissed me on the forehead. Kurtaz was bewildered, especially when Tergiv smiled.
"What? Wasn't that correct?" Tergiv asked, feigning ignorance.
"I don't understand," Kurtaz said.
"I thought Shana might appreciate a kiss from her father before bed," Tergiv replied. Fury boiled up inside me as I heard Tergiv speaking with my dad's voice.
«Tell Tergiv to kiss my ass,» I told Kurtaz.
"Shana says you should kiss her ass," Kurtaz repeated to Tergiv. "Maybe that's what you did wrong?" I could hardly believe he was that stupid. Tergiv smirked, then pulled my dad's hand back to slap my face. "Ow! That hurt!"
"Sorry you had to feel that too, Kurtaz," Tergiv said, "but Shana needs to learn to watch her language!."
«Did you make me say something rude to Tergiv?» Kurtaz demanded. «Tergiv is about to become a Sub-Visser! It would be bad for me to get on the wrong side of a Sub-Visser...»
«I don't care what is good or bad for you!» I spat. Kurtaz sort of frowned at me, like he was disappointed, or confused.
«If Tergiv hurts me, you get hurt too,» he pointed out.
«Same same. You get hurt if Tergiv lashes out at me, like what just happened. Like I said, I don't care. Maybe I'll enjoy the pain, as long as I know you're feeling it just as much as I am.» I imagined fear on Kurtaz's face as he sat back down in the imaginary chair.
"I'm going to bed," Kurtaz said to Tergiv.
"Be my guest," Tergiv replied sardonically. Kurtaz nodded slowly, then walked to my room.
The next day at school, we passed Melissa again. Ever since Tergiv's multiple attempts at recruiting her, Melissa would avoid me at all costs. Kurtaz smiled and waved at Melissa, however, then kept walking.
«Trying a different tactic?»
«Tactic?»
«For sucking Melissa into your nightmare.»
«Oh, no no no! Innis 226 was very clear. No one is to go near Melissa Chapman!»
«That wasn't stopping Tergiv.» Kurtaz looked extremely uncomfortable.
«Well, I guess it doesn't matter much now, right?» he finally said. «I mean, you're not friends with Melissa, so now that Tergiv is in your father, there won't be any interaction between them, right?!» Kurtaz sounded hopeful, almost excited, and spoke as if he wanted me to join in.
«I'm happy Melissa is free, and will remain free,» I said, and I turned my back on Kurtaz.
«Well, until the entire planet is taken,» he said, although a lot less enthusiastically than Tergiv ever did. «I mean, I guess she could be the very last host we take. Or, if the invasion takes long enough, I guess she could die of old age before being infested...» I looked back at Kurtaz, amazed at the pathways he was taking. «Of course, if it starts taking that long, I doubt Visser Three will remain in charge of the invasion. The Council of Thirteen will probably remove him from power, and replace him with someone else...»
"Are you okay?"
«Who's that? Oh, it's Lucas… Herthen...» Kurtaz mumbled.
"Kurtaz?" Lucas persisted.
"Sorry, sorry! I was… We were talking…"
"You were just standing in the middle of the hallway, staring into space," Lucas said. "People were starting to notice!"
"Oh, well, I…" Kurtaz was struggling to come up with a valid excuse.
«Say you were thinking about something, and got lost in your thoughts,» I said, surprising myself by trying to help Kurtaz. Somehow, I felt a measure of pity for the bumbling Yeerk.
"I was thinking about losing thoughts," Kurtaz said. I did a mental facepalm. I could see people staring at us. Herthen must have noticed it, too, because of what he said next.
"I know! You were just fantasizing about our next date!" he said, deliberately loud enough for the people around us to hear.
"Uh, yeah, of course," Kurtaz replied, although he made no effort to make it sound like something a girl would say to her boyfriend.
«Just tell him you need to get to class,» I suggested.
"I need to get to class," Kurtaz repeated. "I'll see you later?"
"You know it!" Once again, my heart tore as Herthen made Lucas smile. I wondered how long Lucas had been infested, how many of those smiles I had admired from afar were actually Herthen, and not Lucas.
«I am not sure how long Herthen as had Lucas as a host,» Kurtaz said. I hated that I could not even think without the Yeerk hearing it.
«I wasn't asking you!»
«You really should just accept that you will always have a Yeerk in your head,» Kurtaz said patronizingly. «I can't say it will always be me, but once a host, always a host.»
«I am going to keep believing that one day, all you Yeerks will be forced off this planet! There will be no more "hosts" for you creeps!»
«By the time the planet as a whole discovers we exist, it will be too late to do anything about it,» Kurtaz said pompously. He was as insistent as Tergiv was about the Yeerks eventually taking the planet, but he sounded more like a cartoonish supervillain. I shook my imaginary head, and sank deeper into the corner of my mind that was left to me.
The "date" with Lucas went the same way as all the others. An evening at The Sharing. Actually, it was just an opportunity for our Yeerks to feed. Herthen and Kurtaz would act all bubbly and lovey-dovey, until we reached the dropshaft. Once we were out of sight, the façade would fall. We would stand like two strangers on an elevator. For some reason, Herthen would always let me exit the dropshaft first. I wondered if the Yeerk had somehow learned chivalry from Lucas.
Then came the long walk to the Pool. The standing in line, no small talk, nothing. Only the sounds of the involuntary hosts screaming from the cages. Sometimes laughter from the voluntary lounge.
When I reached the head of the line, Kurtaz told the Hork-Bajir guard that I was involuntary. Then, he knelt down, tilted my head, and a moment later I felt the numbed sensation of the Yeerk crawling out of my head. The Hork-Bajir had a grip on my arm before I fully regained control of my body. I deliberately made myself a dead weight as I was dragged to the cages. The people already in the cage made space for me as the Hork-Bajir opened it. A few of them stood ready to catch me, in case the Hork-Bajir used extra force pushing me in.
Lucas was also in the cage, but he stayed far away from me. We did this because of the ridiculing we would get from our Yeerks. One time Lucas tried apologizing to me during our brief respites of freedom, and Tergiv spent most of the night mocking the gesture. Then, the next day at school, Tergiv and Herthen spent a majority of the time discussing it, with occasional input from Sleen via Kassidy. From then on, if we ended up near each other during feeding, we did our best not to interact. Tergiv had something to say about that, too, but not as much after the first time.
There was no way of timing how long it took the Yeerk to feed. They did not exactly have clocks posted around the cavern. I guess I could have tried timing it based on what was on the TV the Voluntaries watched, but it still made me sick to see them sitting there, laughing and enjoying themselves while the rest of us suffered in the cages. Instead, I stood at the right edge of the cage, and stared at the ground until the Hork-Bajir returned for me.
"Gafrash you, human girl," the guard said, pointing a clawed finger at me. I shook my head. It was not long enough! I needed a little more time free, in control. "Gafrash now!" I started to cry, and sank back against the wall of the cage. The guard growled, and pushed himself into the cage far enough to grab my arm, and yank me out. He dragged me over to the infestation pier. I resisted the best I could, but the Hork-Bajir was just too strong. Before I knew it, my head was being forced down into the sludge. I have no idea how the Yeerks knew when the right host was present, but within a few minutes, Kurtaz was in control of my body again. He happened to look at the memories accumulated while he was feeding.
«Why do you resist so much?» he asked, legitimately confused. «You know it isn't going to keep you from being infested again.»
«I don't want anyone to ever think I'm a Voluntary!» I spat, deliberately saying the word "Voluntary" as if it were a slur.
«But look at how good they have it!» Kurtaz said, sounding like an infomercial salesperson. «Instead of languishing in a cage, you could be up there, sitting on a comfy couch...»
I will not waste time repeating what I said to him in reply.