I screamed again. Not even my throat clenched itself, my lungs refused to fill completely with air. Instead, the cry revertebrated in my mind, with something like imaginary sound and vibration shaking me and troubling this being, this Yeerk. <And that's just about the extent of what you can do,> it sneered. Then, to my horror, I turned around and walked back away from the pier. The Yeerk used me flawlessly, effortlessly as an extension of itself. I tried to stop, but nothing happened. I had to try. Clench! I whispered to my fists. Stop!, to my feet. Close!, to my eyes. Nothing, nothing . . .

<Give it up,> the Yeerk said again. <There's nothing you can do.> But my mind still worked. I was still sane, I knew everything that was going on and I was still in a small part connected to my body. I could feel everything. The pressure of my shoes, my feet on the steel floor of the pier. Every muscle as it moved, despite the fact that they were employed by something else. None of my other senses were blurred either: sight, sound, hearing, even the plastic taste of the retainer in my mouth and the thirst in my throat was the same. From the science-fiction books and movies and shows I had seen, I had expected to have also lost some of my individuality. In those stories, the parasitic alien always had a sort of mind merging with its host, and the two had sort of symbiosis, even if always came to evil ends. But we were definetly two different minds. It controlled my physical self and mocked my futility while I assessed the situation and struggled for bodily control.

A small laugh. If I didn't know any better, feel the underlying triumph over its hatred Hatred? What did I ever do to you, filthy slug? I would have thought it was a friendly laugh. <Bodily control? No host has ever, ever attained control.> Yet I could catch some distant thoughts, pounding so hard it broke through the barrier that separated itself and I. I knew, somehow, that this creature, this Yeerk, was very slightly afraid. It was afraid of me resisting. I looked at my father, saw the shifting looks in his eyes as he started at me with something that was sometimes disgust, sometimes pity and sometimes greif. We fought again, while I strained to the limits, and my hand trembled. I reached, harder, pushing myself to my limits, knowing that if I did not make it, I would forever be doomed to the hideous Yeerk's fate. My body was stockstill, the Yeerk too distracted to be able to do anything. All of this happened standing in front of my pseudo-dad and the blue alien. It was strange, looking at all of them again.

It was strange looking at the Andalite, with his weird alien body that was oddly beautiful, like some masterpiece of surrealist art, but a work, I felt, that had been created by a remorseless god, or thwarted from its original purpose. Suddenly, I had a picture in my mind. Several pictures. I think they were caused by the Yeerk. They were like different camera shots of him at different angles, different words and things he said, crammed in together in a sort of thought-poetry, a dark poem and a difficult one to interpret. I saw in breif the flash that was his life, an ambitious Yeerk who wanted to reign high in the heierarchy, maybe rule the galaxy.

He was Visser Three, one of the Empire's most powerful warlords. He had killed, not just in battle, but people, hundreds of individuals who stood at him in fear, and he would laugh and give the fatal command. I was filled with a contempt even stronger than my own as I saw how he had done this: by plots and schemes, by executions, by wounding enemies and leaving them to the Taxxons, by assasination and abandonment during battle and quickly shoving them out of airlocks. And slashing with his deadly Andalite tail. I saw all of them that he had killed this way. There was one in particular, with me being held back as I watched him kill a man, who I somehow had strong feelings for. Just as the blade fell to sever his neck, the picture dissapeared into darkness. The Yeerk spoke to me again. <That, that is Visser Three.>

So this was the creature that I would serve. I suddenly realized that I had let my guard down and stopped pushing. I struggled harder, even though my intuition told me that something was distinctly wrong with this. But of course it was. Everything was wrong.

"Visser, I ask that I be excused. My feeding cycle is at its end," my pseudo-dad said.

<Oh, yes.> He  replied a little absently, looking at my father while addressing him, yet also fixing one of his stalk eyes on me as I stood still in conflict. <Well, you have done well with the host. If you continue your good work, you may move up to sub-Visser Fourty-Five. I believe there will soon be an opening in the position.> My body was convulsed by a shudder that had no source in me. Visser Three must have had something significant in mind for whoever currently occupied sub-Visser Fourty-Five, and the Yeerk knew it. So my pseudo-dad left the Visser's presence, and walked down a pier different from the one I had. The Hork-Bajir walked behind him, and when they reached the end it gently held his arm, helping him keep his balance. I saw the Yeerk slug writhe out of his ear and drop into the pool. Still one question stabbed at me: was this man my father? Why was the Yeerk leaving him?

<He was due for his feeding,> the Yeerk explained to me. <Jiran seven-four-eight is leaving his host, and now they'll take him back to where the freed hosts are kept.> I didn't even waste time being angry, at it or the Yeerk who had enslaved my father or at Visser Three. Right now, I just wanted my feet. Aside from my mouth and hands, they were the most important part of my body, and if I could just get to my father before the Hork-Bajir did . . .

But then I received the ultimate shock. When the Yeerk was gone and my father was free, he was not dragged, struggling away to the cages like the other people moving through, but he walked, with resignation, to a separate area that I had not noticed. There were people, a single Hork-Bajir and a lot of grotesque giant centipede creatures, Taxxons, moving around, doing leisure activities. There was a TV, pool table, and several couches where people actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. My father went in there, storming in as if he were angry.

<The voluntary host confinement.>
Voluntary?! Did that mean that my dad . . . No! It wasn't true! It was lying! But as I saw him walk in, say hi to the other volunteers and brush away a Taxxon approaching him, I knew it was true. But why?  Everything crumbled, then if not before, and the Yeerk eagerly seized control. My body stiffened into a formal position, and my eyes were aimed at the Visser, yet held at a respectfully downward angle.

"Kareis . . ." Shock gripped my entire frame, a message from the brain that was controlled by both and neither of us. Also, the Yeerk had a little trouble talking, and it seemed to be in contempt with the words it spoke, words it had not recited in a long long time.  "Kareis nine-two-four of the Sulp Niar pool submits to you, Visser. May the Kandrona shine and strenghen you."

<And you,> he replied with a breif nod. <So have you have control of your new host?> he asked me.
That scum!

"Yes, Visser Three." It was horrible, the words just coming out as naturally as they did with me, just five minutes before. When would this be over?

<Never.> The Yeerk spoke to me in thoughts even as it took its orders from Visser Three. <You are my host indefinetly, or until I get a better one. Then you'll just be the host to someone else.> It couldn't be. It wasn't right. This  was  not  happening.

<Earth will meet the same fate as the Nahara world. It's so easy to infest you. Easy to spread in, from the inside out.> I was about to rebel, to at least argue, but my argument was weak, not carrying any words. There had to be some opposition!

At this thought there was a sudden dread. As this Yeerk took its commands from Visser Three, even though its mind was blocked to me, there was apparent worry caused by the single concept of "opposition." If I tried hard enough maybe I could see into its mind . . .

A flash! A mental explosion, and the impact of images and concepts that hit my mind hard.
A tiger. Adrenaline, fear pouring through the human veins as the tiger roared through the zone around the Yeerk pool . . .
A spaceship. A vast complex the size of a planetoid, a dome where an artificial piece of the Andalite home world, as well as several battle stations, hundreds of fighter ships, weapons and warriors were held. It was heading toward Earth faster than light . . .
The Andalites themselves, their wonderful biotechnology that the Yeerk both detested and admired.
It had seen Visser Three, changing, his features mutating into a monstrous creature from some far-off galaxy. Morphing. And the Andalites here were using Earth animals to fight the Yeerks. Even though the Yeerk thought them enemies and oppressors, to me they were hope. There was hope, I couldn't ever forget that. Suddenly I realized something.

<Why did you show me all this?> This Yeerk had showed me all those things, things from far-off galaxies, yet didn't have to tell me anything. Wouldn't it be to its advantage to keep me in ignorance?

<You have a right to know.> There was a moment of something that felt a little like confusion. Then, it continued, <Pure, disoriented rage can be horrible to control, and knowing what is going on can subdue it. Besides, all that probing is too distracting.> Hmph.

But a small light, a seed of thought started to bloom in my mind. I quickly quenched it, knowing that if it came into full being the Yeerk could read it. Maybe it could read it now. But somewhere, dormant in my mind, was forming an idea that could save me. <So you'll tell me what's going on, and about the Yeerks?>

<Certainly. Just as long as you stop poking at me.> The tone was right on the line between amiable and indignant. <And stop referring to me as "it" and "the Yeerk." My name is . . . Kareis nine-two-four.>

I wondered why it -- or "she," I guess -- even cared, but that was not important. <Deal. You've got a deal, Kareis nine-two-four.>

It was then I took my fifth host since I had first crawled out of Sulp Niar so long ago. First there was the conventional first host, a Gedd, then a Hork-Bajir warrior, then a Taxxon technician, then an adult human female, and now a similar human female, except this one was much younger, only a child by human standards. But its thought patterns, its violent crackling of electric impulses that I felt as I began to interface with its brain, were something a little different than I had ever known. Perhaps it was because the Gedd had been too simple to even fully comprehend what was going on when I infested it, the Hork-Bajir . . . well, Hork-Bajir arn't exactly the thinkers of the galaxy --- and the Taxxon and the woman were voluntary. But the girl, she had been dragged in by Jiran, whose host was her father, not even knowing what was going on and even questioning her sanity until I had tied in and transferred the first bits of information to quiet her thrashing confusion.

But even after she learned that it was hopeless, she continued to fight. And there was a trembling on my control. Not interferance, not trouble, just a shaking that always hovered around like a mosquito or a stinging fly. It was understandable: all that she thought about us had a foundation in the human entertainment movies and books she liked, about clashings of races and the humans that somehow always triumphed. But I had felt something like what she created only once before, and I would never, never let it happen again.

Still, she resisted, not even half-knowing the situation yet, with a buzz of fury and fear and useless courage from adrenaline. It took a lot of willpower then, not to even make a move to crush her. It's kind of like human drugs: once you start, it's hard, terrible, painful to stop. I hated her already for resisting, for threatening my rising once again out of this lowly position. I knew my emotion would be too strong for me to even conceal, but I was shocked when she recognized it and even thought <What did I ever do to you, filthy slug?> at me. It was strange, but even though that most of all told how this host felt toward me, how it wanted so badly to kill me, I started to like her then. Even though she was in what was probably one of the most desperate situations for her, all she could do was look for ways out and try to fight me. It may have been useless, it may have annoyed me to the point of violence, and it may have made me look bad, but I admired that.

I had known her through my former host, posing as a friend of her mother's, and had picked her when I was demoted for the very reason that she was quiet, reserved and passive, and therefore should act like that when she became my host. Even she beleived this and had never known she was capable of such passions except in imagination and drama. But she couldn't have picked a worse time to find her inner strength than just then, where I was standing right in front of Visser Three. It just had to be Visser Three, who had humilated me when my Hork-Bajir host was resisting, and demoted me all the way down to this lowly class for a mistake. I know that I should consider myself lucky: I could have simply been killed or been placed back down to a Taxxon, or even a Gedd. Still, though, I had been planning to impress him and everyone else with my remarkable control of my host and strategic planning that would get me a promotion, make me a Visser.

The other reason that I had picked this host was that she did well in school, especially in writing. She was a thinker, a reasoner yet largely given over to emotion, the kind of mind that would thrive in a council or at the commanding helm of a starship. I had hoped to use this to my advantage. But it seemed that she would be largely uncoperative. We did make a sort of deal after Visser Three dismissed me, though. She agreed not to push against my mind, something that dosn't inhibit so much as interfere and bring about temptation to harm my host's mind, in exchange for me telling her about everything she didn't know. I'd gladly do that: hosts are always stronger when they're in confusion, have nothing to inhibit the raw emotions. She wanted to know because she thought it would help her someday, though everything else was vague because she refused to even finish the thought. Besides, I was hoping for eventual commradship. There were stories some told of Yeerks who actually had a friendship with their hosts. Although that was out of the question, it was always better to have an agreeing host. And although she crept down only reluctantly and waiting for some next time, there was always hope.

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