Stephenie Meyer - The Host

Jared and Doc sprang forward to help. After a few minutes of cursing and groaning, Kyle was lying on a cot a few feet away from mine.

“How long has he been out, Wanda?” Doc asked me. He pulled Kyle’s eyelids back, letting the sunlight shine into his pupils.

“Um…” I thought quickly. “As long as I’ve been here, the ten minutes or so it took Ian to carry me here, and then maybe five more minutes before that?”

“At least twenty minutes, would you say?”

“Yes. Close to that.”

While we were consulting, Jeb had made his own diagnosis. No one paid any attention as he came to stand at the head of Kyle’s cot. No one paid any attention-until he turned an open bottle of water over Kyle’s face.

“Jeb,” Doc complained, knocking his hand away.

But Kyle sputtered and blinked, and then moaned. “What happened? Where did it go?” He started to shift his weight, trying to look around. “The floor… is moving…”

Kyle’s voice had my fingers clenching the sides of my cot and panic washing through me. My leg ached. Could I limp away? Slowly, perhaps…

“’S okay,” someone murmured. Not someone. I would always know that voice.

Jared moved to stand between my cot and Kyle’s, his back to me, his eyes on the big man. Kyle rolled his head back and forth, groaning.

“You’re safe,” Jared said in a low voice. He didn’t look at me. “Don’t be afraid.”

I took a deep breath.

Melanie wanted to touch him. His hand was close to mine, resting on the edge of my cot.

Please, no, I told her. My face hurts quite enough as it is!

He won’t hit you.

You think. I’m not willing to risk it.

Melanie sighed; she yearned to move toward him. It wouldn’t have been so hard to bear if I weren’t yearning also.

Give him time, I pleaded. Let him get used to us. Wait till he really believes.

She sighed again.

“Aw, hell!” Kyle grumbled. My gaze flickered toward him at the sound of his voice. I could just see his bright eyes around Jared’s elbow, focused on me. “It didn’t fall!” he complained.

Jared lunged forward, away from me. With a loud smacking sound, his fist hit Kyle’s face.

Kyle’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his mouth fell slack.

The room was very quiet for a few seconds.

“Um,” Doc said in a mild voice, “medically speaking, I’m not sure that was the most helpful thing for his condition.”

“But I feel better,” Jared answered, sullen.

Doc smiled the tiniest smile. “Well, maybe a few more minutes of unconsciousness won’t kill him.”

Doc began looking under Kyle’s lids again, taking his pulse…

“What happened?” Wes was by my head, speaking in a murmur.

“Kyle tried to kill it,” Jared answered before I could. “Are we really surprised?”

“Did not,” I muttered.

Wes looked at Jared.

“Altruism seems to come more naturally to it than lies,” Jared noted.

“Are you trying to be annoying?” I demanded. My patience was not waning, but entirely gone. How long had it been since I’d slept? The only thing that ached worse than my leg was my head. Every breath hurt my side. I realized, with some surprise, that I was in a truly bad mood. “Because if you are, then be assured, you have succeeded.”

Jared and Wes looked at me with shocked eyes. I was sure that if I could see the others, their expressions would match. Maybe not Jeb’s. He was the master of the poker face.

“I am female,” I complained. “That ‘it’ business is really getting on my nerves.”

Jared blinked in surprise. Then his face settled back into harder lines. “Because of the body you wear?”

Wes glared at him.

“Because of me, ” I hissed.

“By whose definition?”

“How about by yours? In my species, I am the one that bears young. Is that not female enough for you?”

That stopped him short. I felt almost smug.

As you should, Melanie approved. He’s wrong, and he’s being a pig about it.

Thank you.

We girls have to stick together.

“That’s a story you’ve never told us,” Wes murmured, while Jared struggled for a rebuttal. “How does that work?”

Wes’s olive-toned face darkened, as if he’d just realized he had spoken the words out loud. “I mean, I guess you don’t have to answer that, if I’m being rude.”

I laughed. My mood was swinging around wildly, out of control. Slaphappy, like Mel had said. “No, you’re not asking anything… inappropriate. We don’t have such a complicated… elaborate setup as your species.” I laughed again, and then felt warmth in my face. I remembered only too clearly how elaborate it could be.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

It’s your mind, I reminded her.

“Then…?” Wes asked.

I sighed. “There are only a few of us who are… Mothers. Not Mothers. That’s what they call us, but it’s just the potential to be one…” I was sober again, thinking of it. There were no Mothers, no surviving Mothers, only the memories of them.

“You have that potential? ” Jared asked stiffly.

I knew the others were listening. Even Doc had paused in the act of putting his ear to Kyle’s chest.

I didn’t answer his question. “We’re… a little like your hives of bees, or your ants. Many, many sexless members of the family, and then the queen…”

“Queen?” Wes repeated, looking at me with a strange expression.

“Not like that. But there is only one Mother for every five, ten thousand of my kind. Sometimes less. There’s no hard-and-fast rule.”

“How many drones?” Wes wondered.

“Oh, no-there aren’t drones. No, I told you, it’s simpler than that.”

They waited for me to explain. I swallowed. I shouldn’t have brought this up. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Was it really such a big thing to have Jared call me “it”?

They still waited. I frowned, but then I spoke. I’d started this. “The Mothers… divide. Every… cell, I guess you could call it, though our structure isn’t the same as yours, becomes a new soul. Each new soul has a little of the Mother’s memory, a piece of her that remains.”

“How many cells?” Doc asked, curious. “How many young?”

I shrugged. “A million or so.”

The eyes that I could see widened, looked a little wilder. I tried not to feel hurt when Wes cringed away from me.

Doc whistled under his breath. He was the only one who was still interested in continuing. Aaron and Andy had wary, disturbed expressions on their faces. They’d never heard me teach before. Never heard me speak so much.

“When does that happen? Is there a catalyst?” Doc asked.

“It’s a choice. A voluntary choice,” I told him. “It’s the only way we ever willingly choose to die. A trade, for a new generation.”

“You could choose now, to divide all your cells, just like that?”

“Not quite just like that, but yes.”

“Is it complicated?”

“The decision is. The process is… painful.”

“Painful?”

Why should that have surprised him so? Wasn’t it the same for his kind?

Men. Mel snorted.

“Excruciating,” I told him. “We all remember how it was for our Mothers.”

Doc was stroking his chin, entranced. “I wonder what the evolutionary track would be… to produce a hive society with suiciding queens…” He was lost on another plane of thought.

“Altruism,” Wes murmured.

“Hmm,” Doc said. “Yes, that.”

I closed my eyes, wishing my mouth had stayed closed. I felt dizzy. Was I just tired or was it my head wound?