The Host (8 page)

“Hah!” I shouted. “Melanie would eat them alive!”

Her expression froze in place.

She'd had no idea, no matter what she thought she'd discerned from Kathy. She'd thought Melanie's influence was from memories, that it was unconscious.

“I find it very interesting that you speak of her in the present tense.” I ignored that, trying to pretend I hadn't made a slip. “If you think someone else would have better luck breaking into her secrets, you're wrong.”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Did you have someone in mind?” I asked, my voice frigid with aversion.

She grinned. “
I've
gotten permission to give it a try. Shouldn't take long. They're going to hold my host for me.”

I had to breathe deeply. I was shaking, and Melanie was so full of hate that she was past words.

The idea of having the Seeker inside me, even though I knew that I would not be here, was so repugnant that I felt a return of last week's nausea.

“It's too bad for your investigation that I'm not a skipper.” The Seeker's eyes narrowed. “Well, it does certainly make this assignment drag on. History was never of much interest to me, but it looks like I'm in for a full course now.”

“You just said that it was probably too late to get any more from her memories,” I reminded her, struggling to make my voice calm. “Why don't you go back to wherever you belong?” She shrugged and smiled a tight smile. “I'm sure it
is
too late… for voluntary information. But if you don't cooperate, she might just lead me to them yet.”

“
Lead
you?”

“When she takes full control, and you're no better than that weakling, once Racing Song, now Kevin. Remember him? The one who attacked the Healer?”

I stared at her, eyes wide, nostrils flared.

“Yes, it's probably just a matter of time. Your Comforter didn't tell you the statistics, did she?

Well, even if she did, she wouldn't have the latest information that
we
have access to. The long-term success rate for situations such as yours–once a human host begins to resist–is under twenty percent. Did you have any idea it was so bad? They're changing the information they give potential settlers. There will be no more adult hosts offered. The risks are too great. We're losing souls. It won't be long before she's talking to you, talking through you, controlling your decisions.”

I hadn't moved an inch or relaxed a muscle. The Seeker leaned in, stretched up on her toes to put her face closer to mine. Her voice turned low and smooth in an attempt to sound persuasive.

“Is that what you want, Wanderer? To lose? To fade away, erased by another awareness? To be no better than a host body?”

I couldn't breathe.

“It only gets worse. You won't be
you
anymore. She'll beat you, and you'll disappear. Maybe someone will intervene.… Maybe they'll move you like they did Kevin. And you'll become some child named Melanie who likes to tinker with cars rather than compose music. Or whatever it is she does.”

“The success rate is under twenty percent?” I whispered.

She nodded, trying to suppress a smile. “You're losing yourself, Wanderer. All the worlds you've seen, all the experiences you've collected–they'll be for nothing. I saw in your file that you have the potential for Motherhood. If you gave yourself to be a Mother, at least all that would not be entirely wasted. Why throw yourself away? Have you considered Motherhood?” I jerked away from her, my face flushing.

“I'm sorry,” she muttered, her face darkening, too. “That was impolite. Forget I said that.”

“I'm going home. Don't follow.”

“I have to, Wanderer. It's my job.”

“Why do you care so much about a few spare humans? Why? How do you justify your
job
anymore? We've won! It's time for you to join society and do something productive!” My questions, my implied accusations, did not ruffle her.

“Wherever the fringes of their world touch ours there is death.” She spoke the words peacefully, and for a moment I glimpsed a different person in her face. It surprised me to realize that she deeply believed in what she did. Part of me had supposed that she only chose to seek because she illicitly craved the violence. “If even one soul is lost to your Jared or your Jamie, that is one soul too many. Until there is total peace on this planet, my job will be justified. As long as there are Jareds surviving, I am needed to protect our kind. As long as there are Melanies leading souls around by the nose…”

I turned my back on her and headed for my apartment with long strides that would force her to run if she wanted to keep up.

“Don't lose yourself, Wanderer!” she called after me. “Time is running out for you!” She paused, then shouted more loudly. “Inform me when I'm to start calling you Melanie!” Her voice faded as the space between us grew. I knew she would follow at her own pace. This last uncomfortable week–seeing her face in the back of every class, hearing her footsteps behind me on the sidewalk every day–was nothing compared to what was coming. She was going to make my life a misery.

It felt as if Melanie were bouncing violently against the inner walls of my skull.

Let's get her canned. Tell her higher-ups that she did something unacceptable. Assaulted us. It's
our word against hers –

In a human world,
I reminded her, almost sad that I didn't have access to that sort of recourse.
There are no higher-ups, in that sense. Everyone works together as equals. There are
those whom many report to, in order to keep the information organized, and councils who make
decisions about that information, but they won't remove her from an assignment she wants. You
see, it works like –

Who cares how it works if it doesn't help us? I know–let's kill her!
A gratuitous image of my hands tightening around the Seeker's neck filled my head.

That sort of thing is
exactly
why my kind is better left in charge of this place.

Get off your high horse. You'd enjoy it as much as I would.
The image returned, the Seeker's face turning blue in our imagination, but this time it was accompanied by a fierce wave of pleasure.

That's you, not me.
My statement was true; the image sickened me. But it was also perilously close to false–in that I would very much enjoy never seeing the Seeker again.

What do we do now? I'm not giving up. You're not giving up. And that wretched Seeker is sure
as hell not giving up!

I didn't answer her. I didn't have a ready answer.

It was quiet in my head for a brief moment. That was nice. I wished the silence could last. But there was only one way to buy my peace. Was I willing to pay the price? Did I have a choice anymore?

Melanie slowly calmed. By the time I was through the front door, locking behind me the bolts that I had never before turned–human artifacts that had no place in a peaceful world–her thoughts were contemplative.

I'd never thought about how you all carry on your species. I didn't know it was like
that.

We take it very seriously, as you can imagine. Thanks for your concern.
She wasn't bothered by the thick edge of irony in the thought.

She was still musing over this discovery while I turned on my computer and began to look for shuttle flights. It was a moment before she was aware of what I was doing.

Where are we going?
The thought held a flicker of panic. I felt her awareness begin to rifle through my head, her touch like the soft brush of feathers, searching for anything I might be keeping from her.

I decided to save her the search.
I'm going to Chicago.

The panic was more than a flicker now.
Why?

I'm going to see the Healer. I don't trust
her.
I want to talk to him before I make my decision.

There was a brief silence before she spoke again.

The decision to kill me?

Yes, that one.

You're
afraid to fly?” The Seeker's voice was full of disbelief edging toward mockery. “You've traveled through deep space eight times and you're afraid to take a shuttle to Tucson, Arizona?”

“First of all, I'm not afraid. Second, when I traveled through deep space I wasn't exactly aware of where I was, what with being stored in a hibernation chamber. And third, this host gets motion sickness on shuttles.”

The Seeker rolled her eyes in disgust. “So take medication! What would you have done if Healer Fords hadn't relocated to Saint Mary's? Would you be driving to Chicago?”

“No. But since the option of driving is now reasonable, I will take it. It will be nice to see a bit more of this world. The desert can be stunning –”

“The desert is dead boring.”

“–and I'm not in any hurry. I have many things to think through, and I will appreciate some time
alone.
” I looked pointedly at her as I emphasized the last word.

“I don't understand the point of visiting your old Healer anyway. There are many competent Healers here.”

“I'm comfortable with Healer Fords. He has experience with this, and I don't trust that I have all the information I need.” I gave her another significant look.

“You don't have time to
not
hurry, Wanderer. I recognize the signs.”

“Forgive me if I don't consider your information impartial. I know enough of human behavior to recognize the signs of manipulation.”

She glowered at me.

I was packing my rental car with the few things I planned to take with me. I had enough clothes to go a week between washing, and the basic hygiene necessities. Though I wasn't bringing much, I was leaving even less behind. I'd accumulated very little in the way of personal belongings. After all these months in my small apartment, the walls were still bare, the shelves empty. Perhaps I'd never meant to settle here.

The Seeker was planted on the sidewalk next to my open trunk, assailing me with snide questions and comments whenever I was in hearing distance. At least I was secure in the belief that she was far too impatient to follow me on the road. She would take a shuttle to Tucson, just as she was hoping to shame me into doing. It was a huge relief. I imagined her joining me every time I stopped to eat, hovering outside gas station bathrooms, her inexhaustible inquisitions waiting for me whenever my vehicle paused at a light. I shuddered at the thought. If a new body meant freeing myself of the Seeker… well, that was quite an inducement.

I had another choice, too. I could abandon this entire world as a failure and move on to a tenth planet. I could work to forget this whole experience. Earth could be just a short blip in my otherwise spotless record.

But where would I go? A planet I'd already experienced? The Singing World had been one of my favorites, but to give up sight for blindness? The Planet of the Flowers was lovely.… Yet chlorophyll-based life-forms had so little range of emotion. It would feel unbearably slow after the tempo of this human place.

A new planet? There
was
a recent acquisition–here on Earth, they were calling the new hosts Dolphins for lack of a better comparison, though they resembled dragonflies more than marine mammals. A highly developed species, and certainly mobile, but after my long stay with the See Weeds, the thought of another water planet was repugnant to me.

No, there was still so much to
this
planet that I hadn't experienced. Nowhere else in the known universe called to me as strongly as this shady little green yard on this quiet street. Or held the lure of the empty desert sky, which I'd seen only in Melanie's memories.

Melanie did not share her opinion on my options. She had been very quiet since my decision to find Fords Deep Waters, my first Healer. I wasn't sure what the detachment meant. Was she trying to seem less dangerous, less of a burden? Was she preparing herself for the invasion of the Seeker? For death? Or was she preparing to fight me? To try to take over?

Whatever her plan, she kept herself distant. She was just a faint, watchful presence in the back of my head.

I made my last trip inside, searching for anything forgotten. The apartment looked empty. There were only the basic furnishings that had been left by the last tenant. The same plates were still in the cupboards, the pillows on the bed, the lamps on the tables; if I didn't come back, there would be little for the next tenant to clear out.

The phone rang as I was stepping out the door, and I turned back to get it, but I was too late.

I'd already set the message system to answer on the first ring. I knew what the caller would hear: my vague explanation that I would be out the rest of the semester, and that my classes would be canceled until a replacement could be found. No reason given. I looked at the clock on top of the television. It was barely past eight in the morning. I was sure it must be Curt on the phone, having just received the only slightly more detailed e-mail I'd sent him late last night. I felt guilty about not finishing out my commitment to him, almost like I was already skipping. Perhaps this step, this quitting, was the prelude to my next decision, my greater shame. The thought was uncomfortable. It made me unwilling to listen to whatever the message said, though I wasn't in any real hurry to leave.

I looked around the empty apartment one more time. There was no sense of leaving anything behind me, no fondness for these rooms. I had the strange feeling that this world–not just Melanie, but the entire orb of the planet–did not want me, no matter how much I wanted
it.
I just couldn't seem to get my roots in. I smiled wryly at the thought of roots. This feeling was just superstitious nonsense.

I'd never had a host that was capable of superstition. It was an interesting sensation. Like knowing you were being watched without being able to find the watcher. It raised goose bumps on the nape of my neck.

I shut the door firmly behind me but did not touch the obsolete locks. No one would disturb this place until I returned or it was given to someone new.

Without looking at the Seeker, I climbed into the car. I hadn't done much driving, and neither had Melanie, so this made me a bit nervous. But I was sure I would get used to it soon enough.

“I'll be waiting for you in Tucson,” the Seeker said, leaning in the open passenger-side window as I started the engine.

“I have no doubt of that,” I muttered.

I found the controls on the door panel. Trying to hide a smile, I hit the button to raise the glass and watched her jump back.

“Maybe… ,” she said, raising her voice to almost a shout so that I could hear her over the engine noise and through the closed window, “maybe I'll try it your way. Maybe I'll see you on the road.”

She smiled and shrugged.

She was just saying it to upset me. I tried not to let her see that she had. I focused my eyes on the road ahead and pulled carefully away from the curb.

It was easy enough to find the freeway and then follow the signs out of San Diego. Soon there were no signs to follow, no wrong turns to take. In eight hours I would be in Tucson. It wasn't long enough. Perhaps I would stay a night in some small town along the way. If I could be sure that the Seeker would be ahead, waiting impatiently, rather than following behind, a stop would be a nice delay.

I found myself looking in the rearview mirror often, searching for a sign of pursuit. I was driving slower than anyone else, unwilling to reach my destination, and the other cars passed me without pause. There were no faces I recognized as they moved ahead. I shouldn't have let the Seeker's taunt bother me; she clearly didn't have the temperament to go anywhere slowly.

Still… I continued to watch for her.

I'd been west to the ocean, north and south up and down the pretty California coastline, but I'd never been east for any distance at all. Civilization fell behind me quickly, and I was soon surrounded by the blank hills and rocks that were the precursors to the empty desert wastelands.

It was very relaxing to be away from civilization, and this bothered me. I should not have found the loneliness so welcoming. Souls were sociable. We lived and worked and grew together in harmony. We were all the same: peaceful, friendly, honest. Why should I feel better away from my kind? Was it Melanie who made me this way?

I searched for her but found her remote, dreaming in the back of my head.

This was the best it had been since she'd started talking again.

The miles passed quickly. The dark, rough rocks and the dusty plains covered in scrub flew by with monotonous uniformity. I realized I was driving faster than I'd meant to. There wasn't anything to keep my mind occupied here, so I found it hard to linger. Absently, I wondered why the desert was so much more colorful in Melanie's memories, so much more compelling. I let my mind coast with hers, trying to see what it was that was special about this vacant place.

But she wasn't seeing the sparse, dead land surrounding us. She was dreaming of another desert, canyoned and red, a magical place. She didn't try to keep me out. In fact, she seemed almost unaware of my presence. I questioned again what her detachment meant. I sensed no thought of attack. It felt more like a preparation for the end.

She was living in a happier place in her memory, as if she were saying goodbye. It was a place she had never allowed me to see before.

There was a cabin, an ingenious dwelling tucked into a nook in the red sandstone, perilously close to the flash flood line. An unlikely place, far from any trail or path, built in what seemed a senseless location. A rough place, without any of the conveniences of modern technology. She remembered laughing at the sink one had to pump to pull water up from the ground.

“It beats pipes,” Jared says, the crease between his eyes deepening as his brows pull together.

He seems worried by my laugh. Is he afraid I don't like it? “Nothing to trace, no evidence that we're here.”

“I love it,” I say quickly. “It's like an old movie. It's perfect.” The smile that never truly leaves his face–he smiles even in his sleep–grows wide. “They don't tell you the worst parts in the movies. C'mon, I'll show you where the latrine is.” I hear Jamie's laughter echo through the narrow canyon as he runs ahead of us. His black hair bounces with his body. He bounces all the time now, this thin boy with the sun-darkened skin. I hadn't realized how much weight those narrow shoulders were carrying. With Jared, he is positively buoyant. The anxious expression has faded, replaced by grins. We are both more resilient than I gave us credit for.

“Who built this place?”

“My father and older brothers. I helped, or rather hindered, a little. My dad loved to get away from everything. And he didn't care much about convention. He never bothered to find out who the land actually
belonged
to or file permits or any of that pesky stuff.” Jared laughs, throwing his head back. The sun dances off the blond bits in his hair. “Officially, this place doesn't exist.

Convenient, isn't it?” Without seeming to think about it, he reaches out and takes my hand.

My skin burns where it meets his. It feels better than good, but it sets off a strange aching in my chest.

He is forever touching me this way, always seeming to need to reassure himself that I am here.

Does he realize what it does to me, the simple pressure of his warm palm next to mine? Does his pulse jump in his veins, too? Or is he just happy to not be alone anymore?

He swings our arms as we walk beneath a little stand of cottonwood trees, their green so vivid against the red that it plays tricks on my eyes, confusing my focus. He is happy here, happier than in other places. I feel happy, too. The feeling is still unfamiliar.

He hasn't kissed me since that first night, when I screamed, finding the scar on his neck. Does he not want to kiss me again? Should I kiss him? What if he doesn't like that?

He looks down at me and smiles, the lines around his eyes crinkling into little webs. I wonder if he is as handsome as I think he is, or if it's just that he's the only person left in the whole world besides Jamie and me.

No, I don't think that's it. He really is beautiful.

“What are you thinking, Mel?” he asks. “You seem to be concentrating on something very important.” He laughs.

I shrug, and my stomach flutters. “It's beautiful here.”

He looks around us. “Yes. But then, isn't home always beautiful?”

“Home.” I repeat the word quietly. “Home.”

“Your home, too, if you want it.”

“I want it.” It seems like every mile I've walked in the past three years has been toward this place. I never want to leave, though I know we'll have to. Food doesn't grow on trees. Not in the desert, at least.

He squeezes my hand, and my heart punches against my ribs. It's just like pain, this pleasure.

There was a blurring sensation as Melanie skipped ahead, her thoughts dancing through the hot day until hours after the sun had fallen behind the red canyon walls. I went along, almost hypnotized by the endless road stretching ahead of me, the skeletal bushes flying by with mind-numbing sameness.

I peek into the one narrow little bedroom. The full-size mattress is only inches away from the rough stone walls on either side.

It gives me a deep, rich sense of joy to see Jamie asleep on a real bed, his head on a soft pillow.

His lanky arms and legs sprawl out, leaving little room for me where I am meant to sleep. He is so much bigger in reality than the way I see him in my head. Almost ten–soon he won't be a child at all. Except that he will always be a child to me.

Jamie breathes evenly, sleeping sound. There is no fear in his dream, for this moment at least.

I shut the door quietly and go back to the small couch where Jared waits.

“Thank you,” I whisper, though I know shouting the words wouldn't wake Jamie now. “I feel bad. This couch is much too short for you. Maybe you should take the bed with Jamie.” Jared chuckles. “Mel, you're only a few inches shorter than I am. Sleep comfortably, for once.

Next time I'm out, I'll steal myself a cot or something.”