I don't know if you get everything at once or if you need to process it? Most of the relevant stuff's from the last twenty years...

Some of it's instant. Deciding what to do with it definitely isn't.

Yeah, can't help you there except by being here in the first place. We'll be nice. That's - sort of the bit I'm here to prove. 

Yeah, I got that.

Can I keep you?

Uh. 

That hadn't been among the things - well, actually they had said in the briefings that Yeerks got attached -

Maybe sometimes? I like having control of my own muscles a lot, and we haven't worked out a way I could talk to people, and I don't know anything about you, but if you can help me make this transition work really well then I'd probably like you enough.

I can let you move. I'll just stop you if you do something I'm not supposed to let you do. It lets him move.

He wriggles his fingers. He stands up. Yeah, that'd make it a lot easier. Okay. We need a plan.

And pretty quick too.

"What's the story?" asks the Hork-Bajir who brought the container, once the Elf has stood.

"He's actually an ambassador from the Quendi," says the Yeerk with his mouth.

"Volunteers?" wonders another. "Better than Taxxons?"

"Amazing eyes," says the Elf!Yeerk. "Not hungry or anything."

Who's in charge here, how badly are they going to take it - you could say that there's a lot of us, and we're volunteers only if Yeerks are willing to switch to all volunteers....

Visser Twenty-six is in charge but she's not here. Well, she's on the planet but not this forest. Sub-Visser Fifty is in charge of this forest. And is in the forest but not this bit of it right now. I don't really know how they'll take it at all.

"What are they sending an ambassador here for?" wonders somebody.

"They're curious about the breeding programs," says Elf!Yeerk. "They were expecting us to infest him, it's a show of good faith."

He should probably stop distracting his Yeerk. He waits nervously. If he dies he'll just wake up back home - and they can get the Yeerk back too - but it would be nice to not die.

"What's to be curious about?"

"Um, they don't like the idea that the Hork-Bajir have to have children whether they want to or not, but they'd rather solve that by offering other hosts we wouldn't have to breed."

It is very weird to hear his voice when he's not doing the talking. Bit scary. But. There's a really good reason here and he could probably get used to it.

Well they don't have chips I can't do osanwë.

"...Are there lots of them?" somebody wonders.

"We'd still need some Hork-Bajir for anything where we expected melee," somebody else says. "Sure he's got opposable thumbs but he's not sharp."

"There's lots," Elf!Yeerk assures his companions. "Lots and lots. I should probably talk to the Sub-visser."

"All right. Is he good to get through the trees on foot?"

"Yeah."

"What, you mean he can jump the river?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"Huh. All right, go on."

That way, Elf!Yeerk tells Elf.

He can go through the trees on foot! He can jump the river!

The Yeerk politely does not move him as long as he is going where directed. I'm Keften.

Lahtaron. Uh, not that you didn't know that. Jumping rivers is fun. I kind of want to know more about you but thinking what to say to the sub-Visser's probably more important -

There's not much to know. I'm a botanist and I had a Hork-Bajir host for a while but she died last year. I might just tell her that she won't get in trouble for all the ones who died last year if she goes along with your thing.

What happened?

There was a forest on an island but the trees were different and a lot of the hosts got sick from eating them. They didn't die of that but a couple people left their hosts off schedule so they wouldn't have to be in sick hosts and then those hosts killed a lot of the other Hork-Bajir and their Yeerks before anybody knew what was going on.

Is that why the records are sketchy? Are there accurate ones somewhere?

That's why. I don't think so.

Okay. Flat Elves go adventuring in forests all the time; he has the instincts for it, even if he's never used them before. He can keep up with the Hork Bajir.

Then they will reach the building they're heading to pretty quick; Keften knows the layout.

Keften identifies himself to some people and says he should meet privately with Sub-visser Fifty and is ushered through to do that. He tells her that his host is an ambassador from the Quendi, a species they've never heard of before who know them from talking to those-humans-with-whom-Visser-Three-is-presumed-to-have-failed, who disapprove of taking involuntary hosts and particularly of breeding them but they know where there are voluntary hosts to be had and she wouldn't get in trouble for the dead batch he's pretty sure if she surrenders when the demand for surrender rolls around in a couple days. They are very powerful (this one in particular is harmless but as a civilization whoa) and not surrendering kinda won't work, they just would rather it go the one way rather than the other so they're asking.

The Sub-visser has lots of questions about this and finally says she'll call up Visser Twenty-six.

Thank you.