The next three days were bitter ones. For a few seconds I would loose myself in the old familiar musings, back when I could just look out the window and ponder about things without worrying that if I did, I would lessen the chances of getting control back again, but mostly it was all struggle. And I was losing. Perhaps you might say I had a weak will or something, but with most forced Human-Controllers, the struggle was over in a couple of days. Or the host doesn't stand a chance. Some Yeerks, whether out of fear of rebellion or anger at their host or their own perversity, torture their host with their past memories and thoughts, playing them back over and over again until their will and strenghth of mind is eroded away, or it often snaps under the pressure. Fortunatly for me, I had until that point lead a relatively boring life, with no material within to cause me great greif, and the Yeerk who had chosen me had no grudge to take out on my mind. But still I had no free will, no control of my body. Still I was a slave.
I still had to live like I had before. Although the person everyone looked at now was not me but some alien slug, she had to play my part. And she did it flawlessly. There were my little quirks, my temper which manifested itself in different ways in different situations. My arguments with my mother, which she tried to stop because she said they were pointless and they annoyed her, yet often she would get in the argument in earnest and start the verbal duel my mom and I played over certain issues, whether it was my right to be able to practice driving in her car or go out with my friends -- I had supposedly just made some new friends, who invited me out quite frequently, every three days, in fact.
Even worse, in these arguments, the Yeerk that called itself my father, called Jiran-something I think, would play his part perfectly too. He, of course, supported "me" in the arguments I gave about going to see friends, but at the same time he would act like he always had, being on my mother's side, and if he agreed with me, he would, in a subtle way I could not anyalize, somehow convince my mother to let me go out just an hour longer. It was horrible, because my father had always been like that. I'd like to think that I could tell the difference between my dad and some evil alien slug, but the truth was, if I hadn't known who he really way, there would have been no way I could tell. It made me wonder; how long had it been that he had been a slave to a Yeerk? When was the line drawn in his timeline between mundane father and hopeless slave like myself?
I learned a lot in those three days, though. Kareis talked a lot with other Controllers, especially Jiran, even though she didn't seem to like him very much. She seemed to be a pretty popular person among her fellow Yeerks. It wasn't the friendly, "she's-such-a-sweet-person" kind of popularity, though. It was more like when she confronted another Controller, they were in fear of her even though they often acted friendly. I had no idea why, because she didn't command any high rank that I had heard of. And if she had been a particuarly ruthless Yeerk, they would have simply been polite and avoided her.
But there was something even more useful that I learned. From scattered conversations, Kareis's vague information inputs and figuring things out through trial and error, I learned how I might be able to resist. Only those with the strongest of strong emotions driving them, usually concern with one of the closest people to them, like a husband or wife or child, and the right method of directing them, could hope to gain control, and then it was only for a little while or just enough to prevent something.
Maybe if my father had been in danger, I could have called up the strength to save him. But instead of strength, there was only depression, and disbelief. My father had given himself to the slugs willingly. And for what? Was he sacrificing himself for anything? Was he trying to help anything? No, it was the problems of life that any good talk with anyone around him could fix. Later, I did have a reason to even stir my mind, but then it was too late.
But there was one hope. Yeerks have to leave their hosts every three days to absorb Kandrona nutrients in the Yeerk pool. They would lock me up in a cage with the other forced hosts, Kareis told me, and take me out, dunk me back in again after her feeding was done. It seemed a depressing prospect, but I was looking forward to it. If I could talk to the other freed people, maybe we could all join together and fight back the Hork-Bajir that came to get the next "host" out of the cage. Of course, it would take a lot of planning, and several trips . . .
<Give it up.> The voice was dry and carried much of my own tone, which only made me more angry and more determined to get out of it somehow. <There's nothing you can do that I can't prevent. Assuming that you could get together all the screaming, wailing host bodies in there, no amount of humans are a match against a Hork-Bajir, and there's no way you can take any weapons or tools in with you without me discarding them first.>
But there had to be a way to get control of my own body, even if only for a little while. I thought if I could just hold out until the trip to the Yeerk pool, I'd be all right. In the end, it turned useless, rotted away into nothingness when my pseudo-father said in an amiable way to me, "All right, now that you're one of us we can forget the pretenses, at least as long as your host's mother isn't around. You've been demoted down to my level, have't you?"
<Her host's mother? Is that all your wife is to you?!> I raged, even though my logical mind knew that wasn't really my father talking, just a simulacrum. But my attention soon wandered to the words that came from my own mouth:
"Technically, yes. But you have to remember one thing, Jiran seven-four-eight. I've brought many, many victories, and even though I slipped up, I'm still in the high favor of the Council of the Thirteen and I still have my same grade-level, even if I have gone down in class and designation. I havn't lost that, or the privilege of speaking directly to the Visser. Unlike you, of whom I'm willing to wager it was only through bribery that you even got our of your Gedd host." My pseudo-father, or should I say, Jiran didn't say anything, but I knew, as well as the Yeerk -- Kareis -- that he was fuming inside, with nothing to say as a defense. It was all true. But something sneering crept into his eyes.
"That might be true," he replied dryly, "But I can't say I envy your position. After all, unless you're a Visser yourself, not an Emperor's Boon could save you if you make the wrong move, say the wrong thing. And there is no known technology in the universe that can save your decapitated body from the Taxxons." I guess this was supposed to cut her off, but Kareis only got more angry, and I was angry along with her, although for different reasons, and it was both our furies that chilled my voice in that habit I had.
"Exactly." I could feel the danger in those words, words that were full of threat and death. "But you see, I could become a Visser. You're a running candidate for sub-Visser Twenty-Eight, are you not? Well, incidentally, I just might become Visser Nine, once I'm acquitted of this punishment. And you should know, Jiran, that Visser Nine, being in charge of the strategy and intelligence groups of the Earth project, would be your direct superior. So, as a word of advice, it might be in your best interests to regard me as your superior now." So he was a lowly nobody who had the good luck to get a rank. But she'd be over him, and be perfectly authorized to punish him as she saw fit when he inevitably slipped. The punishment was completely up to her. Unless a significant amount of the forces were being depleted, no one would raise a voice to object.
<Don't worry, Jiran> I added in thoughts what I wanted to say. I felt the slow grasp of hatred clasp my heart and tighten it, but now I welcomed it because it could prove to be my strength. <You won't get tortured, eaten or killed at all. You're going to starve. Slowly. And my father will be free.>
<Hah.> Kareis made what could be translated into a sneer.<Who's going to do that?>
<Who says I'm going to stay your host? Your little picnic to the pool is tomorrow, and I will be free.>
<That's what all the hosts say.>The emotion that accompanied these words I could not read: it seemed to be a combination of three main ones: fear, confidence, and anger at me, as well as a thousand other more complex ones that I could not read. So I waited, simply bided my time. It was just 18 more hours . . . 10 more hours . . .4 more hours . . . we were about to leave.
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"All right, daughter," Jiran seven-four-eight, in the body of my father, said to me. "We're going for a nice little father-daughter outing. Your mother called and said she'd be home very late, so she won't even know we were gone." The way he said it, giving cruel emphasis on certain words, caused a shudder that shook me, bypassing Kareis entirely, though I could feel that she was shaken by it too. "Host giving you trouble?" he asked lightly.
"Not at all." She replied just as lightly, with the shadow of a fake smile breaking through my face that she was using as her own. "Is yours?" He changed the subject quickly to something about the old Kandrona rations, and talked on about a lot of things I hadn't heard about yet as Kareis triumphed.
<Jiran is such a pathetic excuse for anyone who's going to be a sub-Visser,> she sneered in her mind in the mode that I was beginning to think of as "out loud" because for the Yeerk, there were two kinds of thinking, one that the host could hear, and another that was just to itself. <I'm going to have him begging me for mercy when I become a Visser. He's not quite as incompetent as he looks, though, maybe he could use a little help . . .>
A shout was let loose in my mind before I could stop it. <No! That's my father! I won't let you hurt him!>
<Oh, really.> The voice was leisurely and relaxed. <And how exactly are you going to stop me?> There was only one answer: to gain control. I reached for my hand and found it surprisingly easy to gain, then I tried all my other parts, which to my delight gave way to my control almost as easily as it had when I was free, except there was always the steel confinement of the Yeerk's supremacy. I took a step; I made it! Another, then another. I was standing in front of Jiran/dad and I aimed my own eyes at him. I opened my mouth to speak--- Then I stopped. No, this wasn't right! There had to be a catch or something, why else would it let me do all this? It was obviously not my own strength, because this strength drew upon motivation, and I had been ten times more motivated with the fear and rage that had gripped me in the Yeerk pool. And I had failed then.
Then I remembered; she had thought to herself about killing Jiran, but since I could only hear her thoughts unless she wanted me too, she must have just done it to provoke me. Then she let me gain control but still kept her thumb on me so that I didn't totally rebel. But why? I made a guess and knew I was right when I felt a tinge of Kareis's frustration, so strong it burned through the layers of blockage between my mind and hers. I was guessing that when a Yeerk made a host into a Controller, the Yeerk was always on top, but if the will and mind were strong enough, perhaps the host could rebel long enough to accomplish their purpose. But even that short time of moving under my own will had tired me out, so maybe it had been trying to burn me out to eliminate the problem of me trying to "get out" and control and interfere with her plans.
<It worked for the Hork-Bajir> Kareis muttered. There was a still pause, and she quickly added as an afterthought, <Then again, they're so stupid, just about anything would work on them.> Then her tone changed to a different kind of anger. <And will you stop referring to me as an "it"? I am female, you know. And I am not "the Yeerk" any more than you are "the human.">
Why do you care? I wondered again, but the thought was so weak it blew away like a wisp of smoke and if Kareis even saw it, she ignored it. <All right,> I replied briskly. <Just as long as you'll tell me what I need to know.> This was important. Suddenly something startled me. <You're female? I didn't know Yeerks had genders.>
After a swift dig into my thoughts there was a sort of nervous laughter, slight embarrassment, and replied: <Ah, not in the way humans have gender. "He" or "she" is determined by our host. We do, though have differences that make us compatible with a certain gender of host. I could just as easily take a male host, but his mind wouldn't be as suitable.>
<What, the female superiority is universal?>
<Of course it is, why do you think Visser One has a human woman as a host?> A breif messege was sent to me about Visser One. Kareis admired her, not only because of her high position, but because she had stood up to Visser Three, climbed above him in rank, a dangerous undertaking, and even in her frail human host and his deadly Andalite one, she never showed a twinge of fear standing beside him.
For a moment I forgot about the constant rancor I held for Kareis as we conversed, my resistance drawing back into my mind, drawn and coiled so I could save my strength for next time. Maybe in a week . . . but I was brought back to the here and now by some sharp words from Jiran. You see, during this whole exchange Kareis had been silent and still, except for my bizarre-looking attempts to gain control of my body and the steps I had made.
"Kareis! Kareis nine-two-four!" His face had a general look of concern, but it was two kinds of concern. I think that one was the fatherly concern for his daughter, which Jiran had forgotten to keep in check because of his worry that Kareis was losing her host. "Are you sure you aren't having problems with that host?" There was no trace of mockery now. "My host knows more than anyone that that human girl can be rebellious, never agreeing with anything."
At that moment I wanted to both crack a smile and burst into tears. I could do neither. Kareis lowered my eyebrows into a posture like that of anger or irritation. "I told you Jiran, I'm not having any problems. As you said, it is very distracting, and sometimes I have to communicate certain things to it so that it will leave me alone. It won't be long, though, until it won't bother me at all anymore."
I heard the threat there, but didn't know how to reply. I chose instead to focus on the superficial. <Now who's an "it"?> No answer, although I could pick up (whether on purpose or not, I'm not sure) that Kareis was sorry, though I wasn't quite sure for what.