V: Children with Men's Voices-/-
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Between my conviction that Edriss was barreling straight into a trap and Edriss' belief that she was diving headfirst into an opportunity for a promotion, we were both fairly optimistic when she was driving around with the Andalite bandits in her car.
"Why don't we merely take a helicopter to this Hork-Bajir colony?" Edriss asked, fishing for more information. Just because she was hopeful about the situation didn't mean that she was trusting.
For the most part, I stayed silent. I had only recently returned to taunting and jeering Edriss, and even then less than I had in the past. It had been a relief to know that Marco and Peter weren't infested, unless something had happened in the last hundred cycles, but some way or another my son was wrapped up in this hellish war, and there was really no way for that to be comforting.
But more importantly than that, I wanted to be able to pick up on every detail and nuance of the Andalite bandits, so that in the event that I was freed, I'd be able to contact them and tell them every single thing I'd noticed while I was Edriss' puppet. It was a dangerous thing to do, I knew, because Edriss could see anything I pieced together, but I was trying only to observe, not analyze. Hopefully, that would be enough but not too much.
As Edriss drove, the Andalites espoused their usual predictable reasoning behind wanting Edriss and not Esplin in command of Earth, and I tried not to take offense at their insistence that my body was "unstable" and easy to kill. Hard to contest that against a morph-capable alien with a bladed tail.
<In direct battle you will be easier to kill than Visser Three. Humans, Controllers or not, die easily.>
"And yet," Edriss murmured, and I could feel her weighing something in her mind, searching her own memories and my own. "And yet, the casualty reports from Earth are always weighted heavily toward Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. In fact…I am trying to recall when I have ever seen a report listing a Human Controller casualty."
<Visser Three's temporary possession of that technological crystal,> I muttered at her, <and of course, Royan Island, your own little pet project, weapons developer.>
<I know that,> Edriss shot back, <but that doesn't mean that I can't try to get a reaction out of the Andalite scum. You hear how they speak about humans. It would be entertaining to tempt their arrogance with a suggestion that they aren't all Andalites are made out to be.>
And yet, the car was silent. Surprise registered for both of us.
<You don't think…?> I asked her, incredulous, then realizing that any thought I put into it was as good as hers, started yelling at her, grasping at any stray insult I could think of as I tried to distract her. If it were true, if the Andalite bandits were humans, if they were humans stupid enough to let that on to Edriss, she might abandon her deal with them and not walk into a situation Visser Three might control. She might not commit us to some suicidal gambit for power. I couldn't let her think it through that far.
<You idiotic piece of slime, there's no possible way for humans to have the morphing technology. You're just chasing after ghosts. You like us humans so much that you want to believe we're capable of stymieing Visser Three, but that's just because you're a low-life sympathizer, ashamed of your own form. The Council will starve you out of me, Edriss, slug, useless blind slug, sympathizing, jealous little slug.>
<Enough, Eva,> Edriss snapped, though exteriorly a satisfied smile spread over my lips. <Do you honestly think I haven't considered the possibility of a trap? Do you think I'm so weak-minded as to be distracted by your pathetic taunts?>
I lapsed back into silence, trying unsuccessfully to fill my mind with anything other than the thought of the Andalite bandits not actually being Andalite bandits.
Edriss continued. <There must be humans among them, or at least in allegiance with them. Foolish of us to not have considered it. They must have had contact with humans or they wouldn't have survived and gone undetected as long as they have.>
<There's at least one Andalite. We've seen him with my own eyes twice now.>
<It could be a human in morph, though I find that unlikely. They're probably mostly Andalites, to have survived as long as they have, but there must be humans among them doing more than advising and sheltering. Eva,> she mused, switching to a wheedling tone, <perhaps that's where your precious Marco is now.>
I said nothing, but my thoughts raced with shame. How had I not considered that?
Edriss laughed at me. <Don't be silly, Eva. Your trusting, naïve little brat? He was doubtlessly an unauthorized host that didn't live long enough to be registered by the system. It happens, sometimes. No need to give yourself any false hope.>
Having successfully shut me down for the moment, she turned her attention back to driving, smugly considering all the ways she could use this information to humiliate Visser Three and reveling in the awkward silence of the bandits in the car. I found myself unable to stop thinking about the creatures, alien or not, who were crouched somewhere in the vehicle.
We arrived at the Visitor's Center only slightly ahead of Visser Three's forces, late enough that Edriss was nervous and hostile. The incident at the shop had shaken her, and no intuiting the bandits' secrets could quite occlude her fear of a quick, Dracon-provided death should she lose control of the situation. It would still be a while before we reached the colony of free Hork-Bajir.
The hike was difficult, to say the least. I would have never pushed myself to the pace Edriss kept. She could feel my pain, but only a fraction of it – I was taking the full brunt of the burning lungs, the blistering feet, the scraped palms, the quaking legs demanding 'stop, stop'. Edriss registered the exertion but pushed through it, doing a fair job at having my body keep up with the Hork-Bajir guide.
At the very least, it was giving me something to think about besides the bandits, whatever they were, whoever they were.
<They're trying to tire you out, Edriss, so they can kill you when they reach the top,> I said. I was allowing myself a little jeering since she seemed dead-set on continuing anyway. <But I suppose you already thought of that, didn't you? I'm sure you've already considered all the ways they're going to kill you and set me free.>
<You know, human, you may find it unusual, but I do prefer your snide remarks to your silence. Especially when my only other companionship is a Hork-Bajir.>
<Well, I'm so incredibly happy I could cheer you up, Edriss. You might as well die happy, right?>
Edriss hauled my body up the final cliff face and let me lie down, staring upwards. Even her sheer force of will couldn't rouse my exhausted legs to hold me up, so we lay. Her ships were up there, though shielded. The fluffy clouds and blue sky we saw was only a mirage, a façade for death and weaponry.
After I was no longer gasping for breath, we stood. The view from the cliff was stunning. If it really was a last view for me – if my prayers were answered and Edriss and I were both about to die – it was a satisfactory one.
<Beautiful,> Edriss muttered to herself, before turning and facing the mountain goat in front of us. "Andalite?"
<No, Yeerk, there's just a friendly goat up here,> I sneered.
As if reading my mind, the goat answered <of course.>
"Well, Andalite or human, whatever you are behind that morph," I felt she added that part specifically for me, "you'd better know one thing: my loyal forces fill the sky! Betray me and you'll be blasted apart!"
<We have a deal. Visser Three will join us soon. He will be alone or nearly alone.>
Neither Edriss nor I believed that second part even for an instant, but Edriss was confident that her ships and sensors would be enough to prevent anything too dangerous to us. "The Hork-Bajir colony. I don't see any colony."
The goat turned its head slightly, then said <not to get all Prince of Egypt on you, but…behold!>
<Prince of Egypt?> Edriss and I both thought at once, but at that moment the ground before us shimmered and vanished, replaced by a steep drop and a valley of free, happy Hork-Bajir. The very sight of it wiped any semblance of skepticism from us as we were overcome with emotion: me with wonder and sadness at the thought that this place existed and would soon be destroyed, and Edriss with sick anticipation and glee. The Hork-Bajir guides behind us said something, but neither of us were paying attention, transfixed by the sight of free, oblivious Hork-Bajir.
<Okay, we fulfilled our end of the bargain. Now it's up to Visser Three,> the goat muttered, and suddenly all the skepticism came rushing back. I felt Edriss flipping through memories, flipping through sounds I'd heard, voices in my memory.
"I know you," she said, with a disarming smile. "I know you, don't I?"
<I am an Andalite warrior. That's all you need to know.>
It was the feeblest attempt at an excuse I'd heard in a long time. Neither Edriss nor I believed it, and I was torn between curiosity and wanting to hide whatever conclusion I reached from her.
"No. Andalites don't make jokes, let alone human pop culture references. No, you're a human, and someone I used to know. Long ago, maybe. But someone I knew," she said to him, and then to me <I can't match the voice to any of your memories, but I'm certain we know this human.>
<I am too,> I answered, sad and surprised, unable to keep anything from her.
The goat said nothing.
<We'll piece it together,> she said to me, putting special emphasis on "we". Not letting me forget that I was aiding her every step of the way, even when I tried to sabotage her.
But right as she started to delve into my memories again, Visser Three appeared and we were both too distracted to do anything but react to him and the many soldiers he'd brought. Edriss and I were both taken aback – we hadn't anticipated he'd be in morph, nor that he'd bring so much backup.
<Well, well, well,> he gloated, <what's this? Visser One perched on the edge of a free Hork-Bajir colony? Chatting amiably with two free Hork-Bajir and, unless I miss my guess, an Andalite?>
To her credit, my body showed no physical stress response. She kept her unease, her utter panic at the situation taking a turn for the worse, completely internal.
Rather than cower, she turned her arrogant words on Esplin. Between the goading Edriss and Esplin did – traitor, incompetent, the usual nauseatingly pathetic song and dance – they were calling down ships to attack each other. Edriss was fully planning on switching the call of attack to the Hork-Bajir the instant before it would be too far gone to look like an accident. I had no doubts that Esplin was as well.
What neither of us expected was that he'd have the audacity to rush and attack us without pretense. As he lunged forward, Edriss pulled a Dracon beam from her bag, but much too late to stop Esplin's momentum. His claw slammed into my shoulder as the Dracon beam shot a superficial hole in him.
The pain caught both of us off-guard – Edriss fell, bleeding and screaming, to the rock floor, and I let out a howl of agony in our head. His claw hadn't punctured as deep as it could have, but it must have been barbed; it had ripped a messy hole down to my collarbone. Blood spilled onto my shirt.
The goat that wasn't really a goat lunged at Visser Three with a very public, very loud cry. Two minds worth of confusion swirled in my head, but everything was happening too quickly for either of us to piece together whom our strange protector and trickster was. The earth beneath us was splitting, Dracon shots going wild, Edriss and Esplin screaming at each other and at their fleets.
Thinking quickly, Edriss retrieved her communicator and demanded to be picked up and removed from the action, but we were isolated on one side of the now-split cliff. Isolated with the goat. With whomever it was who was simultaneously willing to set us up to die and try to defend us.
Edriss moved my eyes to stare at it, face it and try to decide if it was friend or foe. But years of her own paranoia pushed her to raise her weapon at it, rather than grant it temporary trust.
The goat said <I love you.>
<Peter?>
<No.> Edriss reached the conclusion first. Her voice was hollow with disbelief. <No.> And out loud, "The boy! It's the boy!"
Marco lunged for us, and I had never been filled with so much relief and such crushing despair all at once. Nor so much terror as when a tiger appeared over the edge of the cliff and pinned him. Or when Edriss raised her weapon to murder my son with my very own hand.
<No! Edriss, don't! Please! Please don't kill him! No!> I wailed at her, impotent, helpless, utterly helpless to watch her slaughter my child.
I would have gratefully lived a hundred years of torture if it had meant I could have had control over my body at that point, enough to toss aside the weapon, enough to smile and run over to my son and embrace him, enough to just not shoot him. But Edriss had anticipated my bid for control, and repressed me easily. She leveled the weapon at him, followed his tumbling body until she could be sure she could kill him and the tiger both in one shot, and completely dispassionately, twitched her trigger finger.
I didn't know if what happened next was divine intervention, fate, or sheer luck. Perhaps God was answering my silent prayer to save my son, if God is capable of hearing unvoiced invocations from helpless slaves. Perhaps Edriss had a moment of sympathy and paused for just a half-second too long. But she never pulled the trigger.
A black and white bird nearly slashed our eyes out instead, and while Edriss reeling with the pain, while I was reeling with the knowledge that Marco was not only free but a warrior, somehow one of my feet left the cliff ledge. Gravity finished what it had started, and I caught a last glimpse of the goat that was no Andalite, the goat that was a human, that was my sweet and clever son, before I plummeted from the edge of the cliff.
Rather than falling the entire way down the cliff face, I hit a ledge first, sending a lit fuse of pain up my spine to burst in my brain. I must have hit my head on something after that, because time skipped forward, and the next thing I was aware of, I was blind and incapacitated in a bed, bandaged and groggy.
<Edriss?> I asked in the blackness.
<Your son tried to kill you,> she said, and I felt myself slip into an uncomprehending, semi-conscious state.
I was incommunicable for a long while, probably days, on some type of alien anesthetic, drifting in and out of awareness. Edriss spoke to me, but I was beyond understanding words. Eventually either she was silent or I was incapable of hearing her, but I could vaguely understand that she was repeating the memory of the encounter with Marco over and over again. I could feel her being removed for feedings and reinfesting me, but had neither energy nor capability to even make a superficial attempt at fighting her off. She must have been bored, stuck perpetually awake in an amaurotic, bound body, so she started sorting through every memory I had of my son.
Sometimes, when the anesthetic wore off and the pain returned, so did my lucidity. <Edriss? Why can't I see?>
<The morphed bird attacked your eyes, human. They're damaged, but will heal with time. The bandages will be removed soon,> Edriss said clinically, detachedly.
<Why am I still being kept alive? As a host body? Surely I'm so damaged I'm useless to you, especially to a Visser.>
Edriss was quiet for a while, or possibly I slipped into unconsciousness and re-awoke to her. <I requested that you be kept alive unless your body is completely crippled. I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of dying. You still have many uses to me, more now that I know what your son is. His attempt on your life made you more than merely an ordinary host body.>
<Oh. Thank you.>
Edriss sounded surprised. <Changing your mind about freedom in death, human?>
<No. I just don't want my son responsible for my death. I don't want to burden him with that.>
Edriss' voice was heavy with disdain. <Self-sacrificing Eva, is that it? You'll give more years of your life for the ungrateful child who just tried to kill you. Your son attempted matricide, Eva.>
<No,> I said, with deep certainty, certainty she couldn't shake, even as I was drifting back into a dream-state, <he tried to kill you, because he knows what you are. I was just in the way.>
The next time I woke, Edriss, fresh from a feeding and with new information from her pool-mates, told me <the other reason I didn't forfeit your body was because the Council forbid me to take another host until the trial is complete. I'm to be tried for a variety of crimes.>
I might have smiled, were I capable. <Took them long enough to catch you at it, didn't it? Playing footsie with Andalite bandits, killing henchmen, messing up Royan Island like you did? And sympathizing, of course. I wondered when they'd finally get you for that. When does the trial start?>
<As soon as this body is well enough to stand in court. No treatment beyond what is absolutely necessary to ensure your survival and basic mobility. And that incompetent Visser Three will probably add a few injuries of his own while we're in his captivity,> she said darkly. <Should I be proven guilty we'll both die painfully.>
<Sounds lovely,> I said dryly. <You deserve it, you know.>
<Everything I've done has been in service of the Empire.>
<We both know it's in the service of you, Yeerk.>
She didn't answer that. She, and by proxy I, lay sightless and motionless. I thought of my little son, the eleven year-old I'd been torn from who'd grown into a fourteen year-old soldier with a voice so like his father's. I hoped he knew I was alive. I hoped he wasn't burying himself in guilt and regret and fear. I hoped the war wasn't rotting his soul the way it was rotting mine, my corroded mind that couldn't even recognize my own child.
But one can only hope for so long before they start to dwell on the alternatives, so I focused instead on the black canvas of total blindness until I slipped back into the darkness.
Post Merged: September 02, 2010, 01:37:05 AM
VI: Won't Come Undone-/-
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Edriss was watching my memories again. Since her sentencing, she did it pretty frequently, every night before she put my body to sleep, and surely while my mind was asleep. She reminded me of the way Peter had sat in front of the television for two weeks watching old movies after his mother died. To be honest, it bothered me, but not enough to argue with her about it. If she was going to crouch in my head, despondent, absorbing all my happiest memories, I couldn't fight her anyway, and reminiscing was what I'd be doing with or without her.
In another cycle we'd be taken back to Earth for her public execution. When she finally starved to death, I'd be briefly given over to another Yeerk so my mind could be searched for any posthumous charges they could slap on Edriss, and then probably disposed of. My body was already damaged from torture and unhealed injuries, and probably would only get more battered before her death. I would be useless as a host.
Our days were numbered. In a way, it brought out a strange camaraderie between us, one that hadn't existed when she was safe. Yeerks, when facing certain defeat, don't fight it like humans do. After a while, it made all my gloating deeply unsatisfactory. And I didn't want to die either – I was eager to finally be free of her, but some base human instinct in me recoiled at the idea of death. Edriss had explained to me that very few species are capable of the amount of cognitive dissonance that humans manage on a regular basis. I looked eagerly on to the freedom of death, and wanted nothing more than to live, all at once.
So instead of fighting with each other, we lay in the guarded quarters of the Pool Ship that had once been hers, sifting through my memories until we were both nearly delirious.
I held a newborn child in my arms, a boy, with chubby little fingers and a full head of hair. I knew the numbers. 9:27 a.m. Fourteen hours of labor. Thirty-eight weeks of pregnancy, maybe thirty-two being aware of it. Twenty-nine pounds gained, a number I'd fastidiously kept between the recommended twenty-five and thirty-five. Sixteen inches, six and a half pounds, an inconvenient for my job, but not unhealthy, fifteen days early. Peter told me all the numbers first because hard, concrete facts were so much easier for him to process than the fact that he was a father now.
"Which name did you put on the certificate?" I asked him, not taking my eyes off the foreign little thing in my arms. Peter was not the only one having trouble processing the whole thing.
"I went with Marco. You were right, it's not too Anglo-sounding, not too Spanish. And he looks like a Marco. Don't you?" He gently poked the baby's tiny fingers. Our son didn't yet have the motor control, or maybe the interest, to grasp at the intruding digit.
"I don't know if he looks like much yet. A Conehead, maybe. Look at the shape of that little skull."
"It'll get to normal shape soon. And we're not naming our baby Conehead," Peter said laughingly. "I think we'd know if he traveled here from Remulak."
"Oh, believe me, I would know. I think I know exactly where he was coming from for fourteen hours." The baby began to cry. I'd always assumed that parenting would be instinctive, but it was awkward and new, moving the baby's delicate, squished head into position to breastfeed. "I'm sorry, baby. Marco. Your head doesn't look that much like a cone."
I felt the memory distort. Edriss' mind was bleeding into mine. The images of twin newborns, half-Korean, of Hildy Gervais at my side, of my own arms paler and shorter cradling these babies, overlaid my own memory. A little bit out-of-sync, a little bit more faded on top of the memory of Peter and my single baby Marco in my arms.
The images of Peter and Hildy moved together towards the door. In a strange, overlapped voice, they said "your father's in the waiting room. I'll tell him he can come in."
<Edriss, stop trying to pretend it was your family. You have your own memories of them,> I told her.
<Yours are more clear,> she replied.
<This isn't yours. This is my memory.>
<Eva, my memories are fragmented and deteriorating. Yours are as well, but I can access the forgotten sections of them that even you can't. I can dredge up details you never would have remembered without me. Why shouldn't I be able to relive my happiness in the same vivid color and texture as I'm allowing you to relive yours in?>
<Because,> I growled, <it's not your happiness. It's mine. This is my happiness and my love and my family, not your sick murderous excuse for it. Don't even dare compare your idea of love to mine, murderer.>
<Is it so different from yours? Was it different for me to kill Allison Kim and Essam than it was for your brat to try and kill you?>
<Yes,> I said with complete conviction. <Yes, it was different, because Marco was trying to kill you, not me.>
I expected her to argue back more, almost wanted her to so I could tell her a hundred times why she was wrong. But the inevitability of her death had taken the fight out of her. Instead she just flipped over to a memory of my father teaching me to drive.
There had been times when, despite myself, I had admired Edriss' pragmatism and determination, her all-but-delusional confidence. It was difficult to admire her at all when she had completely given up all hope. She was only a memory of her former self, no acerbic insults or vindictiveness left to her, no ambition, no applied cunning. If an opportunity to escape presented itself, she would seize it, but she had no expectation of any chances showing up. All that was left of her were the faded memories she fixed atop the picture-show of my mind.
I almost felt for her for all the months she had spent sharing a head with me, when I was despairing.
She switched over to a memory of my first promotion, when I was in college managing a gas station, going from cashier to assistant manager. I felt the shadow of sympathetic pride and gratification. There was nothing much I could do if she was trying to use my life to remember her own feelings of joy. I didn't feel motivated to futilely try and start a row with her anyway.
<You know,> I said, neither accusing nor empathizing, <there's a certain irony, that you were sentenced to death partially because you were convicted of sympathy, and yet here you are going through my memories because they remind you of you.>
She didn't answer me. A memory of Peter and me at a university-sponsored classical music recital. Extra irony, there. Peter and Marco's escape from infestation had been presented to the Council as evidence that Edriss, empathizing with her human host and already in communication with the Andalite bandits, had orchestrated their protection. Of course, both of us knew it wasn't true, but she couldn't explain that they'd escaped because Marco was an "Andalite bandit" without admitting that she'd kept vital information from the war effort on Earth – which was, like so many Council rules, punishable by some form of painful death. Not that it mattered much anyway; after Edriss had failed spectacularly as a military leader in the Anati system, the Council had been looking for any little reason to reinstate her original sentence.
Last I'd heard, Visser Three was sending out assassins to kill my family. We hadn't heard news beyond that. I would have prayed for their safety, but I had faith that my son was smarter and better equipped than any thugs Visser Three could assign to him.
I slept while Edriss continued to watch my memories. I woke up hours later and found she hadn't stopped all night. I was opening a letter that was awarding me a scholarship; I was taking a bath Peter had prepared for me; I was intimidating an intern from a rival campaign; I was teaching Marco to read; I was excoriating a disliked co-worker; I was shooting some guy down at a bar; I was ten years old and beaming as my mother tasted my first attempt at cooking a whole meal.
Pride, love, power, satisfaction, affection. My life wasn't flashing before my eyes; it was loping along like a disjointed movie for the two of us, the two doomed viewers.
<Edriss,> I said, no longer expecting an answer from her, <in a few days we'll both be dead.>
<Yes.>
<I'll be free.>
<Yes. You will. You'll be free in death, like you always said. Though I don't see what the freedom is in that.>
<It'll be nice, to die on my home planet. To die and be free of you,> I repeated for the thousandth time since her sentencing, but she had made me, too, doubt the freedom of death.
