VISSER

Sample Chapter

My name is Edriss-Five-Six-Two, of the Sulp Niar Pool.

I will begin this story at a time in my career when I controlled a Hork-Bajir host body and held the rank of Sub-Visser Four-hundred-nine. My area of specialization was intelligence. Current assignment? Target acquisition.

I was part of a team that analyzed data from a wide variety of sources. Data that would, we hoped, lead us to what we all longed for so desperately: a Class-Five subject race.

I was young. Young to be a sub-visser, but already impatient to be more. And this job was surely not the path to greater things.

I was third in command at Olgin base, a dusty, irrelevant backwater of bare-bones buildings on the day-night line of a moon we'd actually purchased from the Skrit-Na.

As the Council, knows, the Skrit Na are useless as hosts, and not terribly threatening as foes. But there was no point in starting unprofitable wars, so rather than seize the base, we bought it. The price? A captured Andalite drone ship.

Cheap. And still we overpaid. Olgin base was good for only one thing: Its Zero-space transit point made it convenient for quick data transmission from the widespread elements of the fleet, and from our two main planets: the Taxxon home world, and the Hork-Bajir home world.

Our own planet was then, as now, surrounded by orbiting Andalite warships. The day would come when we would retake our world and the pools that spawned us. But not yet. The Andalites were still too strong for us to risk a head-to-head, all-out conflict.

Before we could face the Andalites we needed a more numerous, more agile, more adaptable host. Gedds were clumsy and weak, with senses that were distorting and unreliable. The Taxxons were allies more than true hosts, and in any event, not even the most strong-willed Yeerk could control the insane, cannibalistic hunger of a Taxxon.

The Hork-Bajir had done well for us. They were naturally strong and dangerous Clumsy for detail work, but the other strengths compensated.

As the Council knows, the problem with the Hork-Bajir was that there simply weren't enough. The Andalites, those moral paragons, had exterminated most of the Hork-Bajir race rather than let it fall into our hands. We had thousands of Hork-Bajir. We needed millions of hosts. My task -- which seemed futile at the time -- was to find those hosts.

Anyone at Olgin base with the slightest influence, the most tenuous connection to a highly placed officer, managed to get reassigned. Yeerks were leaving all the time. And replacements, poor, unwanted trash for the most part, were being sent to us.

One of my duties was to indoctrinate the new recruits. I started as they de-shipped. The ship berths were not a pleasant environment. Cargo was constantly in motion, by puller and pusher, by strap, and even carried on the backs of Gedds.

"There are five classes of alien," I said, eyeing the dozen Gedds, Hork-Bajir and Taxxons lined up before me. "Who can name the five?"

Several started to answer, but I held up my hand, indicating they should remain silent.

"I should say . . . who can name them if I mention that the mangling of a single word, or the misstatement of a single fact will result in your being fed to Taxxons?"

This was my little joke, of course. It is nearly impossible to get a coherent sentence out of a Gedd mouth. And flatly impossible with a Taxxon who can, at best, hiss and sputter in its own language. Meaning no disrespect to the Council Members who hold Taxxon hosts.

Hork-Bajir are the best communicators, of course, despite their brains' innate quirk of confusing various languages. No one laughed at my joke. Good. They were beginning to understand: I was the boss. They were mine to dispose of as I saw fit.

"There are five classes of alien," I continued. "Class One: those physically unfit for infestation -- the Skrit Na being a good example because of their annoying need to phase. Class Two: those who can be infested but which suffer from serious physical drawbacks -- such as the Taxxons and our own Gedds. Class Three: those which can be infested, suffer from no physical debility, but exist in only small numbers and cannot be quickly bred." I used my hand to indicate my own Hork-Bajir body.

"Four: those which would be excellent targets for infestation but which are, for now at least, too formidable to challenge. Can anyone name an example?"

Dead silence. They all knew the example, of course. But they were afraid that saying it out loud might constitute treason.

"Oh, come, come now," I prodded. "We all know who we mean: our former mentors, and now our tormentors, the Andalites."

Nervous glances. Like maybe I'd crossed the line myself. "And then, there are Class Five aliens: Aliens who are right for infestation, exist in large numbers, and do not have the power to resist us. That, my fellow Yeerks, is our mission here. To find the real, live example of Class Five."

"If theyrrrr even rrrr-exist." It was one of the Gedds.

I stepped close. "Your name?"

"Rrr-Kilgam-Thrrrrree Rrr-Two-Nine."

Quick as lightning I struck. My wrist blade swept up and across. The Gedd's throat gushed blue blood. The body collapsed instantly. He clutched feebly at his throat.

I was glad it was a Gedd. If it had been a Hork-Bajir I couldn't have wasted the host body, even as a lesson.

Kilgam-Three-Two-Nine tried to crawl out of the Gedd's ear. He made it halfway before the host body died.

They say it's very, very difficult to get out of a dead host before death reaches you as well. Very difficult.

I reached down and with my sharp Hork-Bajir claws I widened the ear canal. I picked up Kilgam and handed him to one of he Hork-Bajir.

"Better take him to the Pool," I said.

"But . . . But, Sub-Visser, I . . . I don't know where it is, we just arrived at this base!"

So I led the way to the Pool. I had made my point: Their lives were mine, never mind the new regulations against killing subordinates. If they displeased me, they would die, law or no law. But I was not unreasonable. As I had the power to kill, so I had the power to give life.

That's the subtlety so many Yeerks miss. Threats are very useful. But for the more subtle, and thus complete control over your subordinates, you need the helping hand as well as the killing blade.

I had given the same speech, the same demonstration of seriousness a dozen times. I'd never failed to instill a sense of duty in my charges.

And yet, it was all pointless. We were searching for something that might not exist. And something that, in any event, would not be found by we poor, abandoned nonentities on a base the Empire had forgotten.

I was feeling rather self-pitying as I led this latest collection of half-wits to the pool, when I was interrupted by a rushing Hork-Bajir. It was my adjutant, Methit-Five-Seven-Two.

"Sub-Visser! Sub-Visser!"

"Yes, Methit?"

"A report. Just in. One of our people, a sub-visser stationed on the Taxxon planet, has just forwarded a report of a new species." Methit caught his breath.

"And?" I prodded.

"And he claims . . . the report is, that it's Class Five."

I felt my Hork-Bajir hearts jump. "Probably a false alarm," I said blandly. "What is this species called?"

"Humans, Sub-Visser. They are called humans. And . . . And the report claims that they may exist in large numbers. Not millions. Billions."

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