Elizabeth?” I asked. “Anne? Karen? What’s your name? C’mon. I know you know it.”
The Healer’s body was still limp on the cot. It had been a long time–how long, I wasn’t sure. Hours and hours.
A couple times, they’ve referenced being uncertain if people could come back from being brainslugged for no clear reason, and I guess it’s because the author had this in mind the whole time.
Or, well, not the whole time, since again, the seeker referenced her host being restrained while she took a quick tour of Melanie’s memories. But at least since it’s been talked about.
She thinks about the other brainslug that committed suicide.
what was more important, in the end, than love? To a soul, wasn’t that the heart of everything? And love would have been my answer.
Maybe, if he’d waited, he would have seen the truth of that. If he’d really understood, I was sure he would have let the human body live.
The request would probably have made little sense to him, though. The body was his body, not a separate entity. His suicide was simply that to him, not a murder, too. Only one life had ended. And perhaps he was right.
At least the souls had survived. The light on his tank glowed dull red beside hers
Well that was a string of incoherence.
Apparently brainslug brainshredding isn’t murder-suicide, it’s just regular murder and accomplishes nothing. Less than nothing, in fact – while the brain was intact, he had a chance of escape, while shredding it ensures he’s at their mercy. If they want to try cutting him out, he’ll still feel it, if they no longer care, he’ll be left to a slower death within the dying host. So really, it isn’t suicide at all. The only reason to do it is in response to torture, to prevent yourself from feeling what’s happening, and even that’s unnecessary, since apparently it’s standard belief that the minds of their hosts just go away for good upon brainslugging, so withdrawing the tendrils gently to cut the connection would insulate the brainslug just as well from any abuse without risking the host being able to do anything while unrestrained.
(Also, apparently they do have gender! It’s just the seeker that she calls an it.)
Anyway, she just keeps going through all the names she can think of.
“They need you,” I went on, pleading now. “You can help them. You know so much that I never knew. Doc tries so hard. He deserves some help. He’s a good man. You’ve been a Healer for a while now; some of that care for the well-being of others must have rubbed off on you.
Return of the sparkleyeerks. Personally, I’d be a bit worried about what might have rubbed off on her given the healers kill damaged host bodies. Also, it’d likely be best for her own sanity to not keep doing her brainslug’s job.
Eventually, she reacts to the word summer, so our brainslug thinks that’s her name, but actually it’s the brainslug’s name and she hates it and gets all upset. But then, if she’s hearing it all the time, why does it get her attention? She’s clearly not registering most sensory input if even with the brainslug removed she doesn’t hear all the rest of what our protagonist’s been saying to her.
“What is your name?”
“I–I–I don’t know!” she wailed. “What happened? Who was I? Don’t make me be someone else again.”
Much like Lacey’s self-concept being in the plural after her experience, this sure seems more interesting than the Melanie/brainslug relationship. This woman doesn’t seem to have experienced it as a possession but as an overwriting.
She cringed again. “Humans! I’m afraid of humans.”
Actually, she’s kind of like a reversal of Melanie/Brainslug. The brainslug cringes and jumps around other brainslugs now, and is terrified of the thought of seekers. It’s no less irrational than this.
It raises the interesting idea that younger freed humans might actually be more comfortable staying in brainslug society, especially given the brainslugs are objectively nicer in behavior.
Also, I think I’ve figured out why the last two people killed were male. It’s because in both cases, there also had to be a living victim, and there is little acceptable weakness for her male characters. Walter was old and terminally ill, which made it acceptable. Mourning the death of a loved one or being mentally fragile is not. She killed Wes because a girlfriend should be broken up by her boyfriend’s death and now the female host was spared because a man wouldn’t be having such a breakdown.
“Are you a doctor?”
“I am.”
“I was… she was, too. A… Healer.
Why? Before we knew about their medicine this seemed reasonable, but now we know anyone off the street could manage it. It’s not even like it’s a compatible temperament – someone with memories of being a doctor, of performing an extremely skilled job that’s highly thought of by the average person, would seem to be a terrible fit for the boring job of reading a label and dumping the can that says fixes injury on an injury.
She was Summer Song. Who am I?”
“We’ll find out. I promise you that.”
I edged toward the exit. Trudy would be a good person to help Doc, or maybe Heidi. Someone with a calming face.
“She’s not human!” the woman whispered urgently to Doc, her eye caught by my movement.
“She’s a friend; don’t be afraid. She helped me bring you back.”
“Where is Summer Song? She was scared. There were humans.…”
…
“She was… a Bat? She could fly.… She could sing.… I remember… but it was… not here.
So despite this conversation being so much more interesting than anything the brainslug’s done all book, she hurries away and that’s the last we get. It’s confusing why she had such a bad reaction to her brainslug’s name when apparently she can’t properly distinguish between the two of them.
Anyway, she sees that people left one of the fields halfway through irrigating it and starts to freak out about what if everyone evacuated, and then what if brainslugs attacked because that is totally what people disappearing without commotion or any sign of struggle means.
I had to go warn Doc. We had to get out of here if we were the last two.
No! They can’t be gone! Jamie, Jared… Their faces were so clear, as if they were etched onto the insides of my eyelids.
And Ian’s face, as I added my own pictures to hers. Jeb, Trudy, Lily, Heath, Geoffrey.We’ll get them back, I vowed.We’ll hunt them down one by one and steal them back! I won’t let them take my family!
If I’d had any doubts where I stood, this moment would have erased them. I’d never felt so fierce in all my lives. My teeth clenched tight, snapping together audibly.
Once again, you should really have just listened to the seeker when she warned you this would happen.
Before she can explode with anxiety and I can die of boredom because seriously, the seekers are not made up of ninja, she hears people talking, although she can’t tell who.
relief washed through me–because the babble of voices was just the same as it had been my very first day here. Murderously angry.
They had to be human voices.
This is kind of funny, though. How far you’ve fallen, brainslug.
So, they go see what’s up with Kyle.
Sharon’s brilliant hair caught my eye. I was surprised to see her, with Maggie, right in the center of the crowd. They’d both been so little a part of life here ever since Doc and I had healed Jamie. Never in the middle of things.
It’s the fight, Mel guessed. They weren’t comfortable with happiness, but they’re at home with fury.
I thought she was probably right. How… disturbing.
The author’s obsession with this is indeed pretty disturbing.
“Wanda?” Kyle’s voice carried across the noise again, and I looked up to see his deep blue eyes locked on me. “There you are! Could you please come and give me a little help here?”
Sharon and her mother are evil, the guy who brutalized her and tried to boil her alive is a sweetie.
The little face, pale under the deep tan of her skin, peeped around Kyle’s elbow again with a
swish of long, curly black hair. The girl’s mouth was hanging open in horror, her dark eyes
frantic. I thought I could see a faint sheen to those eyes, a hint of silver behind the black.
Because there’s a scared little girl, they decide to be nice and wait to decide if they’re going to kill Kyle until a bit later. The brainslug reports that she thinks people are already calming down, since, you know, no harm done in the end. This is really not how you should be running things! You can’t just say things are okay as long as nothing goes wrong, because you can’t afford to them to go wrong, and that’s why you need rules to not risk it.
Anyway, Jeb’s not done being an alpha male:
“Shut the hell up, Kyle. Just keep your fat mouth shut. I’m dead serious about shooting you, you
worthless maggot.”
There was a weak whimper from behind Kyle.
“Okay, Jeb. But could you save the death threats till we’re alone? She’s terrified enough. You
remember how that kind of stuff freaks Wanda out.”
And that’s why it’s Jodi and not Joe he went to get. Men aren’t weak in this.
The girl–or was she a woman? She was tiny, but there was a subtle curviness to her shape that
suggested more maturity than her size–stared at me, her eyes huge with fright. Kyle put his arms
around her waist, and she let him pull her into his side. She clung there, as if he were an anchor,
her pillar of safety.
They’ve also become more infantilized as time goes on, which is another thing the author’s not interested with for men.
Anyway, she’s Sunlight Passing Through the Ice or just Sunny for short. Our brainslug introduces herself and naturally Sunlight knows about her clawbeast escapades.
I suppressed a groan. “You lived in the second crystal city, I guess.”
And why isn’t she proud of this? She seems to just view it as an embarrassment.
“Were you happy there?”
Her face crumpled at my questions; her eyes locked onto Kyle’s face and filled with tears.
…
“Don’t be afraid. You won’t be hurt. I promised.”
I could barely hear her answering whisper. “But I like it here. I want to stay.”
Anyway, she can see that Sunny, however, seemed to embody the essence of my gentle, timid species so they should give her some time to calm down after all that shouting.
The thing is, they’re obviously not actually gentle and timid. They sure seem cowardly when faced with physical danger, and they have a strong aversion to causing harm to sapient life, but they’re still eating chicken and beef.
“It’s okay,” Kyle murmured to her. “There’s nothing that’s going to hurt you, and I’m here.”
I wondered who this strange man was, the one who had come back in Kyle’s place. Had they
checked his eyes? I couldn’t believe he’d carried all this gentleness around inside his big angry
body.
It must have been having Jodi back, being so close to what he wanted. Even knowing that this
was his Jodi’s body, I was surprised that he could expend so much kindness for the soul inside it.
I would have thought such compassion was beyond him.
Well, of course he’s secretly got a nice side. He’s not some vicious monster like your aunt! Remember everyone, XX is the mark of the devil.
They go to see faildoc and Sunlight sees the cryotanks and starts crying and hugging Kyle more because she is a delicate little baby.
Kyle explains how he found her:
Jodi was really close to her mother, and that’s where Doris lived. I thought, seeing how you
were about Jared and the kid, that maybe she would go there, even when she wasn’t Jodi. And I
So this is his girlfriend or something? She sounds like she can’t be older than twelve. The narration’s claimed she’s at least hit puberty, but that just bumps her minimum age up to a very immature sixteen or so.
I snuck in after they’d all been asleep for hours. I yanked Sunny up, threw her over my shoulder, and jumped out the window. I thought she was going to start screaming, so I was really booking it back to the jeep. Then I was afraid because shedidn’t start screaming. She was just so quiet! I was afraid she had… you know. Like that guy we caught once.”
It’s nice to see incompetence, at least, is something the book is equalhanded about.
“I used to dream about him all the time,” Sunny whispered to me. “Every night. I kept hoping the Seekers would find him; I missed him so much.… When I saw him, I thought it was the old dream again.”
This seems to be the final confirmation that the brainslugs are nuts. At least since being stuck in human bodies, they can’t distinguish between souled and unsouled, all they care is being with someone that looks like their memories. She doesn’t seem to care that Kyle’s a human, but neither would she care if he’d been brainslugged. Since before, he’d need to be brainslugged to be with her, she hoped for that. It’s unnecessary now, so she doesn’t care.
I wonder how this would develop? With so much based on appearance, what happens when half of a couple dies? Will the reborn brainslug’s attachment disappear because it was entirely based on the body, or will a life of broiling in human emotions have left an imprint on the brainslug itself? In that case, the reborn brainslug would want to go back to their former relationship, but the remaining brainslug would have no attachment because the other brainslug’s in the wrong body.
Sunlight says she’s lived five lives on the bear planet already, so apparently you’re not expected to try out new things in the beginning of your life and then settle down, you’re just not expected to try out more than a couple things regardless of how long you take to do them.
“I haven’t been a Dolphin, but I hear it’s nice there. Color, mobility, family…”
“They’re all so far away. By the time I got anywhere, Kyle would be… He’d be…” She hiccuped and then started crying again.
So? Kyle’s going to die long before you no matter what.
“There are lots of worlds, but only a few, mostly the newer ones, are still open for settling.
I thought we established that there really aren’t that many planets. I mean, current open planets are bears, flowers, dolphins, fire, see weed, and bats. That’s like half of them right there.
“Don’t worry, Sunny. You’ll like the Dolphins. They’ll be nice. Of course they’ll be nice.”
Unbeknownst to the brainslug, she is in fact entirely correct. The dolphin-dragonfly hosts are also highly emotional with strong family bonds and the insanity and defection over there is going even faster than it went here.
They ask about Jodi.
“Does she ever talk to you? Are you ever aware of her thoughts?”
“My… body’s? Her thoughts? She doesn’t have any. I’m here now.”
That’s the worst thing about this book, there’s all this interesting creepy stuff and it’s right in the corners where you can barely make it out! Sunlight’s first statement is that her body has no thoughts of its own…the second, “I’m here now” suggests she’s quite aware it used to. The brainslugs understand other creatures think like they do, and they understand that what they do destroys that, but it’s not something they focus on.
She says she’s been here six years.
“And how old are you?” I asked her.
“I’m twenty-seven.”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
“Why does that matter?” Kyle asked.
“I’m not sure. It just seems like the more time someone spent as a human before they became a
soul, the better chance they might have at… making a recovery. The greater the percentage of
their life they spent human, the more memories they have, the more connections, the more years
being called by the right name… I don’t know.”
What? No. There’s absolutely no reason to think that. Melanie wasn’t fading initially and there’s no reason to think she would, she’s just passively dying now because apparently that’s a thing to do when you succeed at your goals. Lacey appears to have been younger than any other host we’ve seen and woke up instantly upon removal, but must have also been one of the first ones brainslugged, and the host we see struggling to reconstruct herself was already an established doctor and had plenty of life and memories. If anything the moral here is that young people do better than old ones. It doesn’t make sense but it’s what the book showed us.
Perhaps she’d be happier if she thought I was going to the Dolphins with her. By the time she knew otherwise, Sunny would have a different host with different emotions and no tie to this human beside me. Maybe.
Despite recognizing the likelihood that her own suicide wish will clear right up once she’s in a saner host, she refuses to admit it would be a perfect good option for her.
Anyway, Ian walks in just in time to hear her explaining to Sunlight that it’s not that only she gets to stay but that they all have to go. Next chapter I presume he yells a bunch and maybe grabs Melanie a few times.