Last time, some comforter babble and the host getting stronger.

I did not feel as comfortable behind the lectern as I usually did. My biggest strength, my only real credential–for my host body had had little in the way of a formal education, on the run since her early adolescence–was the personal experience I usually taught from. This was the first world’s history I’d presented this semester for which I had no memories to draw upon.

Hm. So yeah, they rely on their hosts to give them a leg up on things like this. Odd that wasn’t a criteria for her, though. Maybe it was a choice between getting a semi-educated host or an adult, and she went with adult.

Also, why isn’t she also going to classes herself, if her host is lacking?

“I’m not sure I understand. The Fire-Tasters actually…ingest the smoke from burning the Walking Flowers? Like food?” He tried to suppress the horror in his tone. It was not a soul’s place to judge another soul. But I was not surprised, given his background on the Planet of the Flowers, at his strong reaction to the fate of a similar life-form on another world.

No, I’m pretty sure that’s horrifying all by itself. If you guys require actual experience as a species in order to feel anything for them, you guys are assholes.

She then explains the guy’s ignorance by saying that It was always amazing to me how some souls buried themselves in the affairs of whichever world they inhabited and ignored the rest of the universe. But, to be fair, perhaps Faces Sunward had been in hibernation when Fire World became notorious.

Okay, but this sounds like something you’d still hear about. There can’t be that many planets if at least seven = almost all. And I think this would be something that came up a lot.

“Yes, they receive essential nutrients from this smoke. And therein lies the fundamental dilemma and the controversy of Fire World–and the reason the planet has not been closed, though there has certainly been adequate time to populate it fully. There is also a high relocation percentage.
“When Fire World was discovered, it was at first thought that the dominant species, the Fire-Tasters, were the only intelligent life-forms present. The Fire-Tasters did not consider the Walking Flowers to be their equals–a cultural prejudice–so it was a while, even after the first wave of settling, before the souls realized they were murdering intelligent creatures. Since then, Fire World scientists have focused their efforts on finding a replacement for the dietary needs of the Fire-Tasters. Spiders are being transported there to help, but the planets are hundreds of light-years apart. When this obstacle is overcome, as it will be soon, I’m sure, there is hope that the Walking Flowers might also be assimilated. In the meantime, much of the brutality has been removed from the equation. The, ah, burning-alive portion, of course, and other aspects as well.”

Yay, worldbuilding!

And apparently they’re transporting spiders as an alternate food source? So maybe biologies do share some common traits.

“It seems like a very cruel ecosystem. Why was the planet not abandoned?”
“That has been debated, naturally, Robert. But we do not abandon planets lightly. There are many souls for whom Fire World is home. They will not be uprooted against their will.” I looked away, back at my notes, in an attempt to end the side discussion.
“But it’s barbaric!”
Robert was physically younger than most of the other students–closer to my age, in fact, than any other. And truly a child in a more important way. Earth was his first world

Oh man are they going to be in for a shock when they figure out how much animal life on our planet is sentient. (Sure, the author meant sapient, but they said sentient.)

Also, focusing on if it’s mean seems to be missing the point here. The planet is interesting because it challenges them to figure out how to solve it. Simply leaving the place just lets it continue being terrible. How do you fix a place when cruelty and suffering is inherent? Their choices are to continue to kill the fire flowers for the sake of the fire tasters or wipe out the fire tasters for the sake of the fire flowers – and I’d really like to know why they didn’t just go with the latter option given they hate violence but are okay with getting rid of “defective” hosts, which you’d think an obligate murderer species would be.

It’s also odd that they haven’t taken over the flowers, which seems it’d actually improve things. The brainslugs could just form an orderly queue for the murdering, secure that they personally were immortal.

Maybe this gets into the issue of taking on their host’s feelings. Maybe two intelligent species put together like that, one that must hate the other, would cause a schism among the brainslugs.

–the Mother in this case had actually been an Earth-dweller, too, before she’d given herself

Well, that sounds weirdly phrased.

She tries to explain that you’re only allowed to have opinions about planets you’ve lived on, even though most souls apparently stop at two. Combined with their communication difficulties, and it seems the brainslug empire isn’t much of one. Each world must be pretty much doing its own thing. I guess that’s why no one’s told the earth brainslugs to stop screwing around and get to fixing the ecosystem because they get methane hydrated out of existence.

He says that well, she didn’t live there either, she chose to avoid it, and wasn’t that because of the whole murdery issue?

“Choosing a planet is a very personal and private decision, Robert, as you may someday experience.”

Why? Why would they be touchy about this? They’re supposed to be all harmony-y. Especially when they have this whole thing about living out a full lifespan on the planet and also experiencing even three different planets is considered unusual. They should want to talk about it.

Why not tell them? You do think it’s barbaric–and cruel and wrong.

ARG. No, it’s interesting because it’s a situation where there’s no clear solution – you have to kill one to save the other. Either you can murder one species entirely to protect the other or you can kills lots and lots of the other to keep the first going. No one is on the side of burning intelligent creatures alive for fun! Abandoning the planet does nothing to fix the problem, it’s just closing your eyes to it! It’s like saying that the solution to bad things is to ban news.

Melanie, having found her voice, was becoming downright unbearable. How was I supposed to concentrate on my work with her opinions sounding off in my head all the time?

So it seems she’s no longer dormant during brainslug activities. I guess she wasn’t bored after all, just being successfully pushed back when focusing on other things, but Melanie II can no longer do this.

Also, this stage of possession should be really obvious. People hearing voices are very noticeably off – you may not know exactly what’s wrong with them, but you can tell they’re reacting to something you’re not experiencing, and that alone is enough to bother normal people.

The seeker is hanging out too, no doubt tallying this all up. Melanie II is getting really annoyed, and Melanie I has decided she hates the seeker even more than she does the actual brainslug puppeting her body around.

“I’m pleased to inform you that we will have a guest speaker next Tuesday who will be able to make up for my ignorance on this topic. Flame Tender, a recent addition to our planet, will be here to give us a more personal account of the settling of Fire World. I know that you will give him all the courtesy you accord me, and be respectful of the very young age of his host.

We probably won’t get to see this, but I hope.

Also, seems young hosts impact things? I guess if nothing else, hormones and stuff would be different.

Let’s pause to consider how we’re doing on gender issues.

Our intro chapter has two guys talking. Then it’s girl brainslug and Melanie. Then healer guy and the female seeker. Then Melanie and Jared. Then female comforter and more female seeker. We seem to be doing pretty well!

This chapter shows that minor characters are still defaulting to male – both people in her class are male, and so is the guest speaker she mentions. But overall, surprisingly balanced. The female seeker is getting a lot of shit, but at least it doesn’t seem to be a general thing.

Back to the chapter, she sees the other students chatting as they leave and thinks about making friends, but feels she has nothing in common with these people.

Maybe I was naturally antisocial. My personal history supported that theory, I supposed. I’d never formed an attachment strong enough to keep me on any planet for more than one life.

Book. I’m willing to give you the antisocial when you mean asocial thing, but not if you’re also going to warp the meaning again to mean a particular strong friendship. Gregarious people don’t necessarily form forever bonds at all, let alone faster than people less into casual chat.

Then, the seeker appears by her shoulder and begins to make conversation! The bitch. She tries to brush the evil seeker away and walk off, but the seeker, being evil, doesn’t get upset by this rudeness.

“Do you think you’ll ever settle, Wanderer? On this planet, maybe? You seem to have an
affinity for their… feelings.”
I bridled at the implied insult in her tone. I wasn’t even sure how she meant to insult me, but it
was clear that she did.

Sure she did, Melanie II. You’re totally not delusional.

The seeker continues her evil insulting by having a civil conversation asking if Melanie II feels pity for the humans.

“Don’t you?”
“No. They were quite the brutal race. They were lucky to survive each other as long as they did.”
“Not every one of them was bad.”
“It was a predilection of their genetics. Brutality was part of their species. But you pity them, it seems.”
“It’s a lot to lose, don’t you think?” I gestured around us. We stood in a parklike space between two ivy-covered dormitories. The deep green of the ivy was pleasing to the eye, especially in contrast to the faded red of the old bricks. The air was golden and soft, and the smell of the ocean gave a briny edge to the honey sweet fragrance of the flowers in the bushes. The breeze caressed the bare skin of my arms. “In your other lives, you can’t have felt anything so vivid. Wouldn’t you pity anyone who had this taken from them?”

But turns out this is our seeker’s first life. (Yet she was also part of the early occupation? So I’m wrong, I guess they do use their kids for the initial assault. Somehow. Even though they also treasure them.)

And you chose to be a Seeker in your first life?”
She nodded once, her chin set.
“Well. Well, that’s your business.” I started walking again. Maybe if I respected her privacy, she
would return the favor.

That’s not respecting her privacy, that’s being judgey and closeminded.

How about you consider that maybe she’s got more experience with humans than you and that maybe, someone whose experiences with humans made her think the most important thing is being a seeker should be listened to when she says they’re nasty and dangerous.

But back to the scheduled hating – the seeker says she chatted with Melanie II’s comforter and knows there’s been difficulties.

“Kathy wouldn’t tell you anything!”

Why? I should add that there’s emphasis all over the place in the book itself, and that here, the emphasis is on you because we can never forget the real problem is the seeker is nebulously evil.

Anyway, Kathy didn’t say anything, she just made an upset expression when the seeker pressed the idea and that gave it away, and Melanie II yells

The relationship between a soul and her Comforter –”
“Is sacrosanct, yes

BUT WHY, BOOK.

WHY WOULD IT BE?

They’re happy friendly harmony brainslugs, and yet you keep saying this and that are super rude! Why would it be rude to know a thing about others?

“You think I’m keeping something from you?” I demanded, too angry to control the disgust in my voice.

You mean, the thing you are doing? Because you are totally keeping stuff from her, Melanie II. Not only that but just last chapter you were deliberately trying to mislead her.

And worse, that isn’t even what the seeker meant! Evil seeker of evil still totally trusts Melanie II. That’s not it at all. She didn’t go to interrogate the comforter to find out if Melanie II had said something there and lied about not knowing to her. She just did it to assess Melanie’s emotional state, as is correct to do because we know Melanie II is already most of the way to being Melanie.

I’ve seen it before. You’re growing sympathetic to your host. You’re letting her memories unconsciously direct your own desires. It’s probably too late at this point. I think you’d be more comfortable moving on, and maybe someone else will have better luck with her.”
“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.

Seriously, why are we hating the seeker? She’s concerned that her fellow brainslug is going to get overwritten by a host. In response, that brainslug gloats to herself that haha, dumb bitch didn’t realize how bad it’d gotten. What the fuck?

But she definitely notices the present tense and says as much.

I ignored that, trying to pretend I hadn’t made a slip.

Maybe you could get mad at her again for daring to think you’re keeping secrets, that’d be a good distraction.

Melanie II asserts no one else would be able to get the information. Seeker says there’s no harm in checking, and we find out that she’s gotten permission to do it. You know, the thing Melanie II, back when she was a regular brainslug, accused her of being evil for not doing. But now that makes her evil. Evil is whatever the seeker is doing at this time.

Shouldn’t take long. They’re going to hold my host for me.”

I wonder if that’s literal or if it just means they’ll hold her spot in it. I’d assume you’d want to keep the empty hosts in a medical coma given that knowledge of brainslugs seems to directly lead to resistance and Kevining.

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.

Of course, too late for Melanie II on that front. So far gone she doesn’t even realize how delusional she is. If she was a see weed she’d be curling up her leaves right now, muttering about how better dead than brainslugged.

Melanie I does not point out how insane this is, because I guess she’s taken over so much she doesn’t even notice the brainslug echoing her thoughts.

Anyway, our pure perfect harmonious soul snaps that haha, she won’t leave the body so there’s no chance of that! Yeah, that’s really convincing everyone you’re fine.

Seeker just says that in that case she’ll just keep eeeeevilly going to history classes.

“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

Seeker, you are so great. Look at you! You tried to help out Melanie II, but hey, she’s stuck on her bitchy suicide thing and also actively trying to protect the other humans. The best thing to say at this point is that you’ll get the humans either way, since maybe that’d convince her to leave the damn host already.

(I mean, really, if following Melanie I was the actual plan, she wouldn’t be saying so. She’d say that it’s a shame and she’ll just have to give up and start completely ignoring this body as it is so useless to her investigation, and in fact, maybe she’ll just give up looking for those other humans at all. Everyone’s been saying she should get a new job, maybe they’re right…)

She also describes Kevin as a weakling, but I’m inclined to think she’s playing to Melanie II’s really obvious buttons and trying to provoke her out of this clearly unhealthy body.

“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.

Why wouldn’t she?

For a giant empire of harmony brainslugs, they are really shitty at communicating information.

The long-term success rate for situations such as yours–once a human host begins to resist–is under twenty percent.
…
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.”

Yeah, too late on that front.

The seeker makes a last ditch effort to convince Melanie II to get out before it’s too late. This is evil for some reason.

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.”

Look at how evil she evilly is. It’s nearly as evil as when she was concerned by Melanie II’s apparent illness.

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.

Hm. So is that like a thing they assign? If you are super awesome enough, you qualify to produce the next generation? They do seem like the sort to be strictly controlling reproduction – I mean, they’re either immortal or pretty close to it, deaths from violence are exceedingly rare, and they make a point of wanting to make the planets they’re on better, which seems it requires keeping their host numbers in check. Plus she had this whole speech during the Why Humans Suck bit about how they were mean to children who the brainslugs always treasure (not sure how that fits with the seeker being on her first life and in the first waves of colonization) and that usually means babies are pretty rare.

There’s another bit of odd language:

If you gave yourself to be a Mother

So maybe it’s a metamorphosis? They turn into something that’s no longer a brainslug and can’t possess hosts? Maybe brainslugs are all the larval form.

The seeker asks if Melanie II has ever considered that option.

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 can’t tell if this is a big deal or not because practically everything seems impolite. Is it sexual? Is it just another it’s rude to ask people’s opinions and thoughts thing?

(I read a short story once about kids navigating high school and “sex ed” in a world where instead the taboo was about people’s opinions. Because sex was just a thing everyone did, but opinions were individual and so the most private and precious thing. The bathroom stalls were covered in graffiti about how this one girl was such a brain and how they’d love to ask her opinion on stuff, and this wasn’t a euphemism.

(Although I was kind of annoyed by the fact there’s no way human society could be functioning if we couldn’t discuss anything. But it was still a cool reversal.)

“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!”
Remember the healer being bitchy about how she shouldn’t say anything about how he did his job because she dared say she thought a soul should be inserted at all? Now two people have explicitly said her entire job sucks and is unnecessary and she should quit, one of whom is currently being taken over by her host because humans are so crazy dangerous.

“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.

Look, a brief moment of her being sorta not evil!

I don’t like the phrasing here, though – that’s how we talk, but the souls seem to have a much lower threshold for violence and loss. It should be that even the faint risk is unacceptable, not that a definite loss is.

Anyway, Melanie II responds to this by leaving at top speed, because unlike the unevolved seeker, Melanie II is totally mature.

“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!”

Now would be fine.

Anyway, I’m sure this is supposed to be evil, but I’m pretty sure she’s trying to get her fellow brainslug to realize this is stupid. It seems she can’t just order a transfer herself – maybe a side affect of the whole harmony and joy thing is they don’t have good recourse for intersoul disagreement, and normally it’s a matter of letting individuals choose? Although clearly such courtesies are extended only grudgingly when it comes to seeker job choice. But it does fit with Melanie II’s bit about not judging the fire planet because if souls want to be there they can be there and if they want to eat sentient flowers then I guess they can do that too.

Melanie II bitches more about how unbearable it is having someone around at all. Evil seeker, she is evil.

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.

Okay wait did you not see the bit about how the crucial part here is LYING THAT SHE ASSAULTED YOU? All you get out of that is it sucks there’s no hierarchy because it’s preventing you from the “recourse” of LYING AND SAYING SHE DID SOMETHING TERRIBLE TO GET HER IN TROUBLE?

(Also if you did have a hierarchy she’d probably have reported you first, among other things for actualfax assaulting her, and gotten you removed from your host before you went any crazier.)

Apparently the only remaining difference between Melanie II and the original model is which set of memories they rely most on.

But hey, let’s hear how brainslugs work!

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.

The report organization people are clearly not doing a very good job of it.

Also, this raises a question about how things function. If the souls are very socially minded, then their desire to do an assignment will be tied closely with how much that’s needed in society. That’s not explicitly confirmed in the seeker, but it’s not contradicted and she definitely says she believes her job is important so long as there are wild humans. But then we have Melanie II, who seems to be doing her own job out of inertia – it’s what she did last planet, and she says she’s super uncomfortable about areas she isn’t qualified yet has no interest in educating herself to improve there.

So who is in charge of making sure they have enough people to do all the jobs? Even assuming that souls not lying and stuff means that the outright incompetent are told as much and seek another job, what happens when someone’s a perfect competent musician but you actually need those damn cars fixed? And how do they handle crappy jobs no one wants to do? The whole calling system doesn’t sound like it’s designed to rotate people through those the way that’d actually be fair.

Melanie I isn’t interested in how things are different, just how they can get rid of the seeker.

I know–let’s kill her! A gratuitous image of my hands tightening around the Seeker’s neck filled my head.

Wait, what?

I know there’s the whole thing where humans are more violent than souls, but is this how the author thinks normal humans behave? She regularly thinks about murdering other people because they’re kind of annoying?

And bear in mind she’s picturing strangling the completely innocent host body – I could easily see her fantasizing about crushing or tearing the brainslug, but no. And on top of that, she knows that she’s aware without being able to influence her body at all, so for all she knows, all hosts are still aware.

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.

ARG.

I don’t know why no one will actually talk about what they’re doing!

The response here should not be that they both want to do the same thing. It’d that what the souls did was just as terrible – they murdered everyone, so why the horror at killing one person? Most humans didn’t kill each other, but every last soul has murdered someone, so why are they the better ones?

Then Melanie II starts considering the motherhood business, which apparently is pretty disturbing to Melanie I, so maybe it’s straight up dying.

Melanie II makes a decision.

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

A decision to let a guy make her decision.

There was a brief silence before she spoke again.
The decision to kill me?
Yes, that one.

And still no actual ethics discussion! No mention of the fact the brainslug was, moments ago, going on about how horrible imagining strangling someone was, no accusation that they’re just as bad, they just don’t like to see it happen.

What the hell is the point of Melanie sticking around if she has no interest in presenting the human side of the issue?

Also god damn the healer was a complete asshole who started all the fights with the seeker, shut up about how great he is and it’s just the seeker’s fault for provoking him with her existence.