The Vortex || The Controller

Seemingly father and daughter, we went through the carwash again. We quickly went through the secret entrance inside enclosed space, and descended again to that place of torment for their feeding. I was a little apprehensive. Visser Three had been there the last time I was here, and the last thing I wanted was for Kareis to rendezvous with him for some report or something. The creature didn't seem to value life too highly (his subordinates had been killed for everything from letting the Andalites escape to saying something that put him from a bad mood to a worse one) and besides that, he unnerved me. His very existence seemed an abomination, something wrong that should not be. Like the Yeerks themselves, I thought.

<That's funny,> Kareis mused, ignoring my thoughts about the Yeerks, I guess. <That's what one of the Andalite bandits called him, Abomination, as if it were a title. I overheard his thought-speak. Typical Andalite arrogance. All other Controllers are just plain enemies, but when it's one of their precious people then suddenly he's an abomination.>

I ignored the comment on Andalite arrogance. <But that before was just a one-time thing . . ?>

<Regretfully, no. I lost all my former priviliges and protections and immunities, except for the high and great honor of being able to speak directly to the Visser and try to dodge death. He excused that one time in the beginning becuase I hadn't had a chance to attain full control, but if he sees host resistance ever again, it's the Taxxon pit for me.>

<In that case, I'd really rather die than live this nightmare life . . .> but I cut myself short. Was that true? I wouldn't mind dying but death itself? Everything I had hoped for would all be extinguished. But if life was hopeless . . .

Before I could finish the debate between my will to live and my desire to end the control of the Yeerk on me and not have to worry about Visser Three, I realized that Kareis was walking down the pier, escorted by a Hork-Bajir. I couldn't wait until I could actually get this slug out of my head, and Kareis was famished ; now she was a famished person walking down to a banquet. So we were in perfect agreement as the Hork-Bajir helped Kareis down. As the slug that was Kareis loosened its grip from my brain and wriggled out of me through my ear canal, I felt a strange miasma of dizziness and confusion sweep over me, then it was gone.

Yes!! I was free! Kareis slithered out of my ear and plopped into the Pool, and the Hork-Bajir grabbed me roughly to make me go down to one of the cages where the freed hosts were kept. No! I was free; they couldn't lock me up in a cage! I had to get to my dad! I struggled in the Hork-Bajir's grasp, yelling and screaming I guess, but it simply dragged me to one of the cages, with five other kids about my age, and locked me in. If my spirits had ever truely fallen before, that was nothing to this descent from elation to total depression in less than a second. I collapsed down on my knees and started pounding the cages. I wanted to cry, so hard, but I couldn't. Not now or ever: it had been about two years I had prevented myself from those shameful tears that came even though I ought be old enough to stop them. It did take a while, but I stopped them. Stopped them when I heard a horribly sad story or saw a movie that had everyone else sobbing, or heard that my cousin died. I could only choke on my breaths, and I just wanted to curl up and . . . leave, I guess. I still wasn't sure if I could go through with making or letting myself die, but I knew that if I did live, it wouldn't be like this.

Then, I heard a voice. "Julie?" It was familiar from somewhere . . . Jaime?! I hadn't seen her in a year, and although she had never liked me and I, as a result had disliked her, some impulse made me go over and comfort her, in the same state as I was in.

"Jaime, what . . ." I couldn't bring myself to say what I had to say, but I didn't know what else to. "How did they get you?" She looked just as miserable as I felt, so I knew she probably just wanted to scream too, but she instead looked at me, not with scorn or contempt or (even worse) pity, but with genuine sympathy and even as if she were glad to see me. Maybe she just wanted another, familiar, human being to talk to.

With a sigh, she began in a trembling voice, "Well, there's The Sharing. You know about The Sharing, don't you?" I nodded. The Sharing probably a Yeerk front or something, which would explain Jiran's sudden interest in it. I guess he had gotten impatient with trying to convince me to join up as a member. "At least I think I do. It it a . . . front?" I asked, hoping that would explain my suspicions.

"Yes," her voice was bitter. "It so happened that I got to be an advanced member, and, surprise! part of the extra privileges were getting infested with a creepy alien body-snatcher slug." Her voice was even more bitter now, shaking in the battle with tears. "How . . . did they get you?"

We both felt better, now that we had someone to talk to, but there was also something vaguely horrible about discussing Yeerks in this almost casual way, like you discuss the death of someone in your family. Jaime must have been a Controller for quite some time; her serenity seemed to transfer to me. "It was my father." The initial happiness of meeting a friend (even if she wasn't my friend until a few seconds ago) faded. "He's a . . . a Controller." I couldn't bring myself to say "voluntary," and I think if she had accused him of being as such, I would have defended him down to the rank he now held. But instead of accusing, she simply nodded, knowing.

"I --- the Yeerk, it's his subordinate. His Yeerk name is Jiran something, isn't it?" I nodded, and looking down in shame, despite the never-halting sympathy in her voice, and continued.
"He just took me with him to the carwash, and all of a sudden, we were going down the stairs of this opening in the floor." Normally, I would have been crying and sobbing as I told the tale, but my emotion was a grief I had never experienced before. It was strangely tranquil; the calm after the storm. Still, it was hard to talk about. "I was . . . brought before Visser Three, he sneered at me a little and then a Hork-Bajir dragged me down the pier."

Suddenly her face went a little pale and her eyes grew until the whites were visible all the way around her dilated pupils. "Visser Three!" The name was spoken with the hatred that was due to the creature it belonged to as well as a sort of awe. "What did he say? I mean, why did he want to oversee it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Visser only supervises the host transaction of very, very important Yeerks. Is the one you have a sub-Visser, or a low-class Visser or something?" The shock was fading, but the awe remained.

"No, I don't think so. It seems like she's some big deal in the rankings, or used to be, but for some reason or another she got demoted and got me as a host, and now she's at the level of Jiran as far as power goes. She was bragging to him about how she was going to be Visser Nine when she got promoted again, though."

Just as it was leaving, the stunned look on her face returned again. "Chose you!" she exclaimed. "Only the highest and most important get to choose their hosts when they get demoted! And straight to Visser Nine!! What's its name?"

I was getting a little disturbed by this. Was there something about Kareis that I should know? "Kareis." I replied. "Kareis 924. Why?"

"Don't you know? Kareis is famous with these Yeerks. I think it won a battle or something and got promoted really high."

We hadn't talked long after that when a burly looking Hork-Bajir, tall and muscular even for his kind, came up to our cage and opened it. There was another one, smaller yet still formidable with all his blades, who stood behind the door to block our exit as the big one barked something to Jaime. She crouched in the back of the cage, and on an impulse I stood in front of her. The big Hork-Bajir smacked me with the flat of his wrist blade, throwing me down to the stone floor and the solid metal bars, and held a weapon at Jaime. A Dracon beam.

Later, I would would remember that Jaime took karate and Tai Kwon Do classes and in the right circumstances could grab a six-and-a-half-foot-tall man by the arm and flip him over and down, break a concrete block with bare hands and feet, that kind of thing. She had probably tried to fight them when they had come for her in the past, just like almost all the other involuntary hosts, and actually made one of the brutish things feel something on their leathery hides.

Reluctantly, looking as if she wanted to simply sit there and die instead of having to go through with it all over again, she got up. But she got up just the same, and giving me a small wave goodbye that I could barely detect, she walked out of the cage and toward the pier, her whole body shaking with effort to stay calm. But evidently, she couldn't hold it back anymore, because on the first step on that steel pier a horrible scream tore from her throat, she started yelling, struggling, although it proved useless against the Hork-Bajir who dunked her head in the Yeerk pool. She came up tranquil; the Yeerk was back. It brushed away with embarrassment the tears that were left over from its host's freedom, and it looked coldly at me as it walked away to exit the pool.

So I was left in the cage alone. All the rest of the occupants were, in the typical fashion of people who were temporarily freed hosts, crying or screaming or too sullen for me to even think about talking to, so I could only wait in a dulled depression until the same Hork-Bajir group came for me too. I thought that I wouldn't struggle; I would be rational about it and save my energy for thinking or planning. But when that cage door creaked open and the only things between me and freedom were two creatures (who, after all were only seven feet tall, and they didn't seem too strong on brains) I was determined to get past them. I could almost see my way out . . .

It was over in three seconds. One of them had grabbed me by the wrists and dragged me part of the way down the pier, pushed me and dragged me when I struggled so much I fell and then they did their routine of kicking my legs out from under me. My ear was submerged, and I felt the slug that was Kareis slithering into my ear again.

I thought the first time I had been dragged down to the Yeerk pool and had a Yeerk slug crawl into me it was horrific, but it was even worse the second time. Because this time, when my unpreventable scream escaped from my throat and blended with the hundreds of others', it wasn't shocked fear anymore, it was despair. Something in me knew that this was my fate: to be a host to these alien parasites, to live like I should only for an hour every three days. I had almost forgotten how horrible it really was, until yet again the anathema interfaced with my brain, scanning everything that had happened when it was "gone," and using my body with an unnatural easiness to again report to Visser Three.

"Kareis nine-two-four of the Sulp Niar pool submits to you, Visser Three. May the Kandrona shine and strengthen you."

"And you, Kareis nine-two-four." Every one of his words were wrenched out of his mind with agitation. He was much angrier, much more uneasy, and his bullwhip tail was lashing behind him.

<If you have the slightest wish to go on living,> Kareis told me with perfect gravity, <do not try to gain control. It's all very fine later, but if you do it now he could strike me dead. I don't even have the immunity I used to have. Just stop fighting, just long enough until we get out. Please.> Whatever beneficent side effects doing this would have for Kareis, she wasn't thinking of them now. Right now, she was asking me, no, pleading with me for her life. Her fear was so strong she couldn't hide it from me.

<I won't try to make any movements,> I assured her <but I cannot stop fighting.> If there was any hope, it could only be reached by keeping up the battle of mind force. Because in a Controller, the Yeerk always had the advantage; it was like an Olympian racing an ordinary runner. The ordinary person might never win, but they know they have to keep running, because if they stop they won't be able to start again. Fatigue was a constant companion, even though for me it was in my mind.

<And for . . . all that you hold sacred, stop "talking" to me while I address the Visser. The Taxxon pit is full of people who said something the Visser didn't like.>
So I struggled without attempting movement or speech, and found my guard let lower still as I listened to Kareis's conversations with her authority.

"Yes, Visser Three. She is in a perfect position to carry out the assigned duties, and it will be natural for her to work with Jiran seven-four-eight, whose host is her father."

Inwardly, Kareis uttered a strange oath of mixed human and alien origin, cursing the Visser, cursing me and cursing herself for letting the host's resistance show. She didn't care about letting me hear it. "No, Visser. No problems at all." It was amazing how genuine my face felt as Kareis contorted it into that of a calm, confident person. If I didn't know how she was feeling at the time, even I wouldn't have been able to tell; it was a face exactly like I made when I was really calm. There was an entirely different one for when I was nervous and trying to appear calm.

<Why are you so worried?> I asked her. <You can't tell me that you're the first Yeerk that had trouble keeping control.>

<Shut up!> she yelled in my head.

More than a little worried about Kareis's ability to cope with Visser Three (after all, if she died, I died) I did keep "quiet," and tried to figure out what was really going on between Kareis and the Visser that I didn't know about.

<Good.> Was it just me, or did he sound like he knew she was lying? He sounded almost glad about it. <You have a new assignment now. You are to evaluate the Andalite bandits. They have been attacking in an erratic pattern lately, and I need you and the other Intelligence services to find what they are really after.> Kareis was in the intelligence agency? Could it help me find out what I needed to know?

"Yes, Visser Three." Silence between them. Visser Three was still angry, and I'd have almost given my arm to know exactly why. Chances were slim that it actually didn't have something to do with the fabled renegade Andalites.

<Interesting idea,> Kareis told me. <But I'm not sure this is the best time to ask him; he'd take more than your arm, that's for sure.> Indignation filled me. I hadn't even sent those ideas to Kareis; in fact, I had not even thought them out. They had been only vague concepts in my mind. <I can read the subconcious,> she told me. <How else would I know your language? How else would I know exactly what you would say or do? The inward thoughts as well as the outward ones, they're all open to me.> This was a new burst of horror, because I had thought my innermost, secret thoughts were safe from her. Because there, I was slowly constructing a plan . . .

<For what?> Ugh.

I didn't answer. I didn't even try to conceive more, because then she would see it. I guessed the only way I could go through with it was to plan as I went along. Or for that matter, not have a plan.

Finally Visser Three spoke again. Kareis had had to wait all that time to speak, because protocol forbade her, a low-ranking Yeerk, even a high-grade low-ranking Yeerk, from speaking to a Visser unless spoken to or there was a matter of upmost importance. <The Andalites are expected to strike at a meeting of The Sharing tomorrow night. You will be there, hidden and separated from the main group. Monitor any unusual animal activity, and if you see any groups, especially different species, then keep track of where they head back to. I will catch those renegades!> They must have really messed up his plans.

"Yes, Visser Three."
<This is getting kind of old,> I commented.

To my immense relief, the Visser seemed to have nothing more to say. <You are dismissed now, Kareis 924. Prepare for your mission and report to me via the holophone tonight at 8:55 Earth hours.>

<Holophone?>

<A holophone is like a hologram with a two-way communicator. It is capable of picking up both regular speech and Andalite thought-speak, so two people can converse on it. Visser Three likes to use it to talk to his subordinants when he can't be at the pool. He has a small, portable Kandrona on his Blade Ship that he uses to feed on and travel far away.>

Kandrona? Blade Ship? But I didn't have to ask. Rapidly she sent pictures at me. A large machine that generated particles like that from the Yeerks' home sun. Then there was the Blade Ship. Seen from the window of a viewing portal of a Pool ship (she must have been one of the officers back then) as a Hork-Bajir. It was like the head of a vast battle-ax of medieval times, with a central triangular head and two large wings like double blades, giving the ship its name. It flew relatively close, and with "my" farsighted Hork-Bajir eyes, I saw at the front helm a commanding figure, whom she knew to be Visser Three (though he was Visser Ten back then). Terrible fear clutched Kareis at this time; it was the first time she had seen him, since their "childhood" on the Hork-Bajir world. <My commander,> she told me. <Ever since the beginning. I remember, he was always so inquisitive, so curious and probing. He gained knowledge from the Andalite computers, and used it to win the most brutal takeover we have ever executed, and eventually to capture the great Andalite war-prince.> Not only was there the instinctive battle-readiness that came from spotting the Andalite form of her enemies, but also the fear of the Yeerk himself. The knowledge of the conneiving, ruthless mind that helped win the Hork-Bajir world, that discovered Earth and initiated its invasion, that would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way.

Meanwhile, Visser Three added something as an afterthought. <One of my subordinates with an electrician as a host will come to your house on the grounds of fixing the electrical wiring. He'll install the holophone and integrate its power to the human electrical system. You may leave now.>

Grateful to escape, Kareis went to another part of the Yeerk pool to meet Jiran. Then, we came to the exit that led to a fast-food restaurant. Someone had driven our car to the restaurant's parking lot and left it there for Jiran, like a valet service. Kareis explained that, being in the intelligence agency, they had special privileges, and besides they had to get to that side of the city anyway. And from what she and Jaime had said earlier, I suspected that Kareis, being a famous figure among the lower Yeerks and going to be lots of them's boss someday soon, would have gotten a few special privileges no matter what her job was. Tired and depressed, I barely paid attention to what was going on as Jiran and Kareis sat at a booth, talking over a burger, fries and a Coke.

I was dwelling on some distant thoughts when suddenly I was brought to attention by something Jiran said: "So, you're supposed to keep track of the Andalites, are you?"

Kareis seemed to be in a bad mood, or at least brooding about something, and didn't answer him. She just stared at her food and absentmindedly ate, in the way I did when I didn't feel like eating, just bit and chewed for sustainence. All thoughts were totally blocked to me.

Jiran didn't seem to be the least purturbed, just making conversation between bites, keeping his voice soft, of course, since there was a there were regular humans around. "I can understand me getting assigned to watch humans who are possible Andalites in morph, but assigning you to stop their sabotage? Why dosn't he just save himself some time and kill you now?"

"Shut up!" Kareis raised my voice at him. I felt a sudden burst of emotion, and I knew if we weren't in a public place, she'd probably be screaming. When the person in the booth behind us glanced with curiosity at us, then turned away, she lowered her voice, but continued her angry tone. "I don't need you to rub it in. I figure if I can gather some information on them, he won't be angry. After all, that is my real job, and only part of what he wants is better than nothing."

"Don't you get it?" It was so weird seeing my father, or who appeared to be my father, talking to me like an equal. Actually, a slightly higher equal, because he said everything with a certain tone of caution. "You may be at lowest rank right now, but you're still a competitor to the higher ranks and eventually the Council seat he covets. No matter what you do, unless you give him a jar containing the entire troup of Andalite renegades in bug morph with an hour left on their clocks, he'll find some way to pin some blame on you. He wants you dead."

"Don't you think I know that?" Kareis's fear was evident both in my voice and in my head. She seemed so troubled that my voice threatened to crack. Was it . . . no, I couldn't believe it! My eyes were getting moist. She struggled back the tears, but I knew my eyes were marked by the telltale redness that always occurred with me. She took a moment to collect herself, and began to talk again. "I won't let him kill me. People have moved up under tyrants like Visser Three. I'll--" her voice grew desperate. "I'll notify Visser One: she let the Andalites escape once to humiliate him. She'll help me. I'll appeal to the Council of Thirteen." She turned to Jiran, eyes widening. "Jiran, if you help me, I will personally make sure that you get promoted when I become Visser."

"Hold on, wait a minute." He held up a hand. "For one thing, you need to calm down. You're going to burn yourself out and you've got to report to Visser Three in two hours." I recognized what I knew to be a shadow of fatherly concern for me, and I wanted to cry. There was also the concerned interest of a peer, and I listened carefully. "I'm all for you being a Visser. Who wouldn't want a commander who knows what its like to be one of them, to be terrorized and oppressed? And if I may say so," he said looking at me, "you did make an excellent leader. And it'd just make my day for someone to usurp Visser Three as the commander of the Earth project."

My eyebrows slowly raised themselves in hopeful surprise and thoughtfulness. "Really? All right then, do you have to report with me?"

He shook his head. "I have no such honor. Remember, you're our star performer. The spotlight's on you." It was so weird, he was using human expressions and references as naturally as any real person would. Even Kareis's thoughts at me held some of these.

She replied with a nod and a grim smile. "Very well. We'd better get going; when the Visser says 8:55, 8:56 is fatal." With a sardonic twist of his mouth that might have been a smile had his mood been better, Jiran and my father sat up and put his coat on. Kareis and I did the same, and we both left to the car. I wondered what went on in that Yeerk pool. Could those Yeerk slugs, those disembodied minds, communicate and act there? What had gone on there that had metamorphosed Kareis and Jiran's rigid competition to friendly alliance? And Kareis had something on her mind, something big. The brooding feeling was like a nagging premonition, something intangible and insensible, yet it wouldn't go away.

<What are you thinking about?> I asked her. <What actually went on in that pool?>

<The same thing that happens during every visit to the Pool,> she replied briskly. <Feeding, recharging and information exchange.> Yeerks communicate in ultrasonic chirps, or by touching palps and passing on the information to one another, like the chain of neurons in the brain.

<What kind of information?> A flash, like the one Kareis had given me at the Yeerk pool, and the one before that, when she was still crawling through my ear canal. Except instead of pictures and sensations, mostly they were concepts. Ideas. First, there was one of the Andalites. She was being sent alone on her scouting mission (further proof of Visser Three's designs against her) so there would be no one to see if she talked with them instead of capturing them, exchanged information and ideas then let them fly away free. She could buy time for herself by appealing to the Council of Thirteen against her unfair assignment, and in the meantime she would work with the Andalites to sabatoge Visser Three's latest project, while taking charge of the situation herself. He'd get demoted, she promoted back to Visser Nine. From there she'd use the knowledge she'd gained from the Andalites during their deal to expose and capture them, which would make her at least Visser Three.

<Woo hoo!>I gave a mental cheer. <Ditch the blue guy, I like that.> Then I remembered something. <Wait a minute. You're going to make a deal with the Andalites for the common cause of eliminating the Visser. I'm all for that. But then you're going to break the deal just to get promoted.> Is being promoted worth that?>

<You and your human "morals,"> she scoffed. <This is war. You humans, even the alleged "good guys" have commited heinius acts a thousand times worse in your wars. Besides, if they're stupid enough to think I'm not going to break something with no more power than concept for something that I can only gain from, they deserve to be turned over to the Council. Or maybe I'll handle them. Yes, I can get an Andalite host, I'll give one to Jiran as reward for helping me and the rest will go to the little group of rebels I'll have to recruit to help me.>

I was disgusted. Just when I was starting to think that maybe Kareis was different from the rest of these Yeerks, lives revolving around the politics and power of their Empire, that maybe they weren't all soulless slugs who just wanted to crawl in someone's ear and take over them and everything else, it seemed that I had been proved wrong. But then I thought to my plan, the one I had been wondering about to get free. Suddenly, it conceived itself in my mind, and I saw that our plans overlapped. I had been hoping to meet up with the Andalites too, though what would happen after that I wasn't sure of.

When your every waking thought is overheard by the person you're plotting against, you have to take things one step at a time. I guess I was thinking of something along the lines of they'd capture me since they would be afraid of a Controller giving them away. Maybe they'd force Kareis out, or trap me so she couldn't go back to the Yeerk pool. I'd help them, and together we would defeat Visser Three. Who knew, maybe they'd give me the morphing power. Morphing, Kareis told me, is not an organic process, but a technology that in theory any creature could be exposed to.

<What would you do then, if you were in my place?> Kareis challenged me angrily. I was more than a little surprised. I didn't think she actually cared what I thought of her, though maybe my thoughts gave her a guilty conscience. Wait a minute, conscience?

When I came to think of it, chances were high that that would be what I would have done. I didn't want to think about that though. <I don't care,> I snapped. <I just want to meet up with the Andalites. I want to be free. I will be free.>

<Even if I have to die of Kandrona starvation? Can you conceive of how painful that is?> The question was only half rhetorical, and I felt a shadow, a vague, transferred memory of that pain and dissolving hunger from the time Kareis had almost starved, gotten very close to starving, back when she was in her Hork-Bajir host, fighting on a stranded ship with a burnt-out Kandrona. But I was feeling ruthless, brutal if I had to be. Nothing was more important than living, than being free again. Again, I didn't answer and got to the point.

<Are you kidding?> Kareis was incredulous. <What fight? I'm in control, you're the host. It's as simple as that.>

Kareis sighed, and closed her eyes in resignation. Catching her at the moment, I reached out and tried to open my eyes. Eyelids are one of the fastest-moving parts of the body, but at the time to me they were a ponderous and complicated mechanisism, involving cooperation of muscle and skin and will.

The car stopped, and Jiran got out, as did Kareis and I. It was she who stepped out and walked to the door, went inside after Jiran. However, it was I who kept my eyes open, holding them against the urge to blink. To this day I am not entirely sure how I accomplished this, even this one little thing, but I did.

So the battle between Kareis and I began.

Chapter Four | Main Page | Chapter Six
|Home|