The Host (The Host 1)

"Give the gun to Ian or any of the others. I don't care," I said, my voice slow and even. "Just leave the boy out of this. "

Jeb's sudden face-wide grin reminded me, strangely, of a pouncing cat.

"It's my house, kid, and I'll do what I want. I always do. "

Jeb turned his back and ambled away down the hall, whistling as he went. I watched him go, my mouth hanging open. When he disappeared, I turned to Jamie, who was watching me with a sullen expression.

"I'm not a child," he muttered in a deeper tone than usual, his chin jutting out belligerently. "Now, you should. . . you should go in your room. "

The order was less than severe, but there was nothing else I could do. I'd lost this disagreement by a large margin.

I sat down with my back against the rock that formed one side of the cave opening-the side where I could hide behind the half-opened screen but still watch Jamie. I wrapped my arms around my legs and began doing what I knew I would be doing as long as this insane situation continued: I worried.

I also strained my eyes and ears for some sound of approach, to be ready. No matter what Jeb said, I would prevent anyone from challenging Jamie's guard. I would give myself up before they asked.

Yes, Melanie agreed succinctly.

Jamie stood in the hallway for a few minutes, the gun tight in his hands, unsure as to how to do his job. He started pacing after that, back and forth in front of the screen, but he seemed to feel silly after a couple of passes. Then he sat down on the floor beside the open end of the screen. The gun eventually settled on his folded legs, and his chin into his cupped hands. After a long time, he sighed. Guard duty was not as exciting as he'd been expecting.

I did not get bored watching him.

After maybe an hour or two, he started looking at me again, flickering glances. His lips opened a few times, and then he thought better of whatever he was going to say.

I laid my chin on my knees and waited as he struggled. My patience was rewarded.

"That planet you were coming from before you were in Melanie," he finally said. "What was it like there? Was it like here?"

The direction of his thoughts caught me off guard. "No," I said. With only Jamie here, it felt right to speak normally instead of whispering. "No, it was very different. "

"Will you tell me what it was like?" he asked, cocking his head to one side the way he used to when he was really interested in one of Melanie's bedtime stories.

So I told him.

I told him all about the See Weeds' waterlogged planet. I told him about the two suns, the elliptical orbit, the gray waters, the unmoving permanence of roots, the stunning vistas of a thousand eyes, the endless conversations of a million soundless voices that all could hear.

He listened with wide eyes and a fascinated smile.

"Is that the only other place?" he asked when I fell silent, trying to think of anything I'd missed. "Are the See Weeds"-he laughed once at the pun-"the only other aliens?"

I laughed, too. "Hardly. No more than I'm the only alien on this world. "

"Tell me. "

So I told him about the Bats on the Singing World-how it was to live in musical blindness, how it was to fly. I told him about the Mists Planet-how it felt to have thick white fur and four hearts to keep warm, how to give claw beasts a wide berth.

I started to tell him about the Planet of the Flowers, about the color and the light, but he interrupted me with a new question.

"What about the little green guys with the triangle heads and the big black eyes? The ones who crashed in Roswell and all that. Was that you guys?"

"Nope, not us. "

"Was it all fake?"

"I don't know-maybe, maybe not. It's a big universe, and there's a lot of company out there. "

"How did you come here, then-if you weren't the little green guys, who were you? You had to have bodies to move and stuff, right?"

"Right," I agreed, surprised at his grasp of the facts at hand. I shouldn't have been surprised-I knew how bright he was, his mind like a thirsty sponge. "We used our Spider selves in the very beginning, to get things started. "

"Spiders?"

I told him about the Spiders-a fascinating species. Brilliant, the most incredible minds we'd ever come across, and each Spider had three of them. Three brains, one in each section of their segmented bodies. We'd yet to find a problem they couldn't solve for us. And yet they were so coldly analytical that they rarely came up with a problem they were curious enough to solve for themselves. Of all our hosts, the Spiders welcomed our occupation the most. They barely noticed the difference, and when they did, they seemed to appreciate the direction we provided. The few souls who had walked on the surface of the Spiders' planet before implantation told us that it was cold and gray-no wonder the Spiders only saw in black and white and had a limited sense of temperature. The Spiders lived short lives, but the young were born knowing everything their parent had, so no knowledge was lost.

I'd lived out one of the short life terms of the species and then left with no desire to return. The amazing clarity of my thoughts, the easy answers that came to any question almost without effort, the march and dance of numbers were no substitute for emotion and color, which I could only vaguely understand when inside that body. I wondered how any soul could be content there, but the planet had been self-sufficient for thousands of Earth years. It was still op

en for settling only because the Spiders reproduced so quickly-great sacs of eggs.

I started to tell Jamie how the offensive had been launched here. The Spiders were our best engineers-the ships they made for us danced nimbly and undetectably through the stars. The Spiders' bodies were almost as useful as their minds: four long legs to each segment-from which they'd earned their nickname on this planet-and twelve-fingered hands on each leg. These six-jointed fingers were as slender and strong as steel threads, capable of the most delicate procedures. About the mass of a cow, but short and lean, the Spiders had no trouble with the first insertions. They were stronger than humans, smarter than humans, and prepared, which the humans were not. . .

I stopped short, midsentence, when I saw the crystalline sparkle on Jamie's cheek.

He was staring straight ahead at nothing, his lips pressed in a tight line. A large drop of salt water rolled slowly down the cheek closest to me.

Idiot, Melanie chastised me. Didn't you think what your story would mean to him?

Didn't you think of warning me sooner?

She didn't answer. No doubt she'd been as caught up in the storytelling as I was.

"Jamie," I murmured. My voice was thick. The sight of his tear had done strange things to my throat. "Jamie, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking. "

Jamie shook his head. "'S okay. I asked. I wanted to know how it happened. " His voice was gruff, trying to hide the pain.

It was instinctive, the desire to lean forward and wipe that tear away. I tried at first to ignore it; I was not Melanie. But the tear hung there, motionless, as if it would never fall. Jamie's eyes stayed fixed on the blank wall, and his lips trembled.

He wasn't far from me. I stretched my arm out to brush my fingers against his cheek; the tear spread thin across his skin and disappeared. Acting on instinct again, I left my hand against his warm cheek, cradling his face.

For a short second, he pretended to ignore me.

Then he rolled toward me, his eyes closed, his hands reaching. He curled into my side, his cheek against the hollow of my shoulder, where it had once fit better, and sobbed.

These were not the tears of a child, and that made them more profound-made it more sacred and painful that he would cry them in front of me. This was the grief of a man at the funeral for his entire family.

My arms wound around him, not fitting as easily as they used to, and I cried, too.

"I'm sorry," I said again and again. I apologized for everything in those two words. That we'd ever found this place. That we'd chosen it. That I'd been the one to take his sister. That I'd brought her back here and hurt him again. That I'd made him cry today with my insensitive stories.

I didn't drop my arms when his anguish quieted; I was in no hurry to let him go. It seemed as though my body had been starving for this from the beginning, but I'd never understood before now what would feed the hunger. The mysterious bond of mother and child-so strong on this planet-was not a mystery to me any longer. There was no bond greater than one that required your life for another's. I'd understood this truth before; what I had not understood was why. Now I knew why a mother would give her life for her child, and this knowledge would forever shape the way I saw the universe.

"I know I've taught you better than that, kid. "

We jumped apart. Jamie lurched to his feet, but I curled closer to the ground, cringing into the wall.

Jeb leaned down and picked up the gun we'd both forgotten from the floor. "You've got to mind a gun better than this, Jamie. " His tone was very gentle-it softened the criticism. He reached out to tousle Jamie's shaggy hair.

Jamie ducked under Jeb's hand, his face scarlet with mortification.

"Sorry," he muttered, and turned as if to flee. He stopped after just a step, though, and swiveled back to look at me. "I don't know your name," he said.

"They called me Wanderer," I whispered.

"Wanderer?"

I nodded.

He nodded, too, then hurried away. The back of his neck was still red.

When he was gone, Jeb leaned against the rock and slid down till he was seated where Jamie had been. Like Jamie, he kept the gun cradled in his lap.

"That's a real interesting name you've got there," he told me. He seemed to be back to his chatty mood. "Maybe sometime you'll tell me how you got it. Bet that's a good story. But it's kind of a mouthful, don't you think? Wanderer?"

I stared at him.

"Mind if I call you Wanda, for short? It flows easier. "

He waited this time for a response. Finally, I shrugged. It didn't matter to me whether he called me "kid" or some strange human nickname. I believed it was meant kindly.

"Okay, then, Wanda. " He smiled, pleased at his invention. "It's nice to have a handle on you. Makes me feel like we're old friends. "

He grinned that huge, cheek-stretching grin, and I couldn't help grinning back, though my smile was more rueful than delighted. He was supposed to be my enemy. He was probably insane. And he was my friend. Not that he wouldn't kill me if things turned out that way, but he wouldn't like doing it. With humans, what more could you ask of a friend?