The Host (The Host, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

Anxiety was an unusual emotion for Fords Deep Waters. Irritation was even rarer. However, because Fords Deep Waters lived inside a human body, irritation was sometimes inescapable.

Pity swelled in his heart as he remembered the condition her poor, broken body had been in when the Seekers had brought her to the Healing facility. Such pain she’d endured. . . . Of course she was perfect now — completely healed. Fords had seen to that. “She looks the same as any of us,” Fords murmured to Darren. “We all have human faces. And when she wakes up, she will be one of us, too.”

Like a living ribbon, she twisted and rippled, stretching, happy to be free of the cryotank. Her thin, feathery attachments, nearly a thousand of them, billowed softly like pale silver hair. Though they were all lovely, this one seemed particularly graceful to Fords Deep Waters.

“Perfect, as usual,” said the assistant, who, for some reason unfathomable to Fords, had never made a change from his human host’s name, Darren. Fords sighed. “I regret this day’s work.” “You’re only doing your duty as a Healer.” “This is the rare occasion when Healing creates an injury.” Darren began to clean up the workstation. He didn’t seem to know how to answer. Fords was filling his Calling. That was enough for Darren.

All the horror of this young woman’s end would be borne by the innocent soul he’d just placed inside her. As he leaned over the human and whispered in her ear, Fords wished fervently that the soul inside could hear him now. “Good luck, little wanderer, good luck. How I wish you didn’t need it.”

The language I found myself using was odd, but it made sense. Choppy, boxy, blind, and linear. Impossibly crippled in comparison to many I’d used, yet still it managed to find fluidity and expression. Sometimes beauty. My language now. My native tongue.

Sucked into the hell that was the last minute of her life, I was she, and we were running.

Some had more fur lower down on the jaw; those were always males.

Guess again mormon

I knew nothing of what passed for beauty among these strangers, and yet I knew that this face was beautiful. I wanted to keep looking at it. As soon as I realized this, it disappeared. Mine, spoke the alien thought that should not have existed.

The planet called Earth was as peaceful and serene as it looked from space, invitingly green and blue, wreathed in its harmless white vapors. As was the way of the soul, harmony was universal now.

The more likely meaning of his censure was the distaste most of us felt for the Seeker’s Calling. Who would choose a life of conflict and pursuit? Who would be attracted to the chore of tracking down unwilling hosts and capturing them? Who would have the stomach to face the violence of this particular species, the hostile humans who killed so easily, so thoughtlessly? Here, on this planet, the Seekers had become practically a . . . militia — my new brain supplied the term for the unfamiliar concept. Most believed that only the least civilized souls, the least evolved, the lesser among us, would be drawn to the path of Seeker.

Never before had an occupation gone so awry. Never before had it turned into a fierce and bloody battle. Never before had the lives of so many souls been sacrificed. The Seekers stood as a mighty shield, and the souls of this world were thrice-over indebted to them: for the safety they had carved out of the mayhem, for the risk of the final death that they faced willingly every day, and for the new bodies they continued to provide. Now that the danger was virtually past, it appeared the gratitude was fading. And, for this Seeker at least, the change was not a pleasant one.

I was afraid of the voice I’d heard so loudly in my head. But she was silent now, as was right. She was just a memory, too.

We continued to observe him, along with his Comforter, and eventually discovered that the host was periodically taking control of Kevin’s body.” “Taking control?” My eyes strained wide. “With the soul unaware? The host took the body back?” “Sadly, yes. Kevin was not strong enough to suppress this host.” Not strong enough. Would they think me weak as well? Was I weak, that I could not force this mind to answer my questions? Weaker still, because her living thoughts had existed in my head where there should be nothing but memory?

Kevin was relocated, into an immature host this time. The troublesome host was in poor repair, and it was decided there wasn’t much point in saving him.

A deserted rocky beach in Mexico. A cave, the entrance guarded by sheeting rain, somewhere in Oregon. Tents, huts, rude shelters. As time went on, the names grew less specific. She did not know where she was, nor did she care. My name was now Wanderer, yet her memories fit it just as well as my own. Except that my wandering was by choice. These flashes of memory were always tinged with the fear of the hunted. Not wandering, but running.

Though the wall slapped into place with an accompanying sensation of vicious resentment, it was not fast enough. “Jared,” I answered. As quickly as if it had come from me, the thought that was not mine followed the name through my lips. “Jared is safe.”

I hear his mumbled oath at the same time that a stupid squeak of fear escapes my mouth. I spin to sprint for the front door, hoping the locks are not latched, or at least not difficult. I don’t even get two steps before rough, hard hands grab my shoulders and wrench me back against his body. Too big, too strong to be a woman. The bass voice proves me right. “One sound and you die,” he threatens gruffly. I am shocked to feel a thin, sharp edge pushing into the skin under my jaw. I don’t understand. I shouldn’t be given a choice. Who is this monster? I’ve never heard of one who would break rules. I answer the only way I can. “Do it,” I spit through my teeth. “Just do it. I don’t want to be a filthy parasite!” I wait for the knife, and my heart is aching. Each beat has a name. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. What will happen to you now?

His words are nonsensical. I thought the aliens were all the same. I guess they have their nut jobs, too, after all. I twist and claw, trying to break his hold. My nails catch his arm, but this just makes him tighten his hold on my throat. “I will kill you, you worthless body thief. I’m not bluffing.” “Do it, then!” Suddenly he gasps, and I wonder if any of my flailing limbs have made contact. I don’t feel any new bruises. He lets go of my arm and grabs my hair. This must be it. He’s going to cut my throat. I brace for the slice of the knife.

“I can’t believe it,” he whispers. “You’re still human.” His hands grab my face from both sides, and before I can pull free, his lips come down hard on mine. I’m frozen for half a second. No one has ever kissed me in my life. Not a real kiss. Just my parents’ pecks on the cheek or forehead, so many years ago. This is something I thought I would never feel. I’m not sure exactly what it feels like, though. There’s too much panic, too much terror, too much adrenaline. I jerk my knee up in a sharp thrust.

I don’t want to disappear from him. “I . . .” How can I not trust another human completely? We’re family — both part of the brotherhood of extinction.

He is still holding my hand. He lets go slowly, his eyes not leaving mine. He takes a step backward, then pauses. “Please don’t kick me,” he pleads, leaning forward and grabbing my chin. He kisses me again, and this time I feel it. His lips are softer than his hands, and hot, even in the warm desert night. A flock of butterflies riots in my stomach and steals my breath. My hands reach for him instinctively. I touch the warm skin of his cheek, the rough hair on his neck. My fingers skim over a line of puckered skin, a raised ridge right beneath the hairline.

Jared’s poorly healed scar had never been much of a disguise. I flicked on the light beside my bed, waiting for my breathing to slow, veins full of adrenaline from the realistic dream. A new dream, but in essence so much the same as the many others that had plagued me in the past months.

The sound of my voice, answering her aloud, made me shudder again. She hadn’t spoken to me since the first moments I’d been here. There was no doubt that she was getting stronger. Just like the dreams. And there was no question about it; I was going to have to visit my Comforter tomorrow. Tears of disappointment and humiliation welled in my eyes at the thought.

“I hear good things about you from Curt. He says your class is among the most requested at the university.” My cheeks warmed a bit at this praise. “That’s nice to hear. How is your partner?” “Curt is wonderful, thank you. Our hosts are in excellent shape for their ages. We have many years ahead of us, I think.”

There isn’t a school on this planet that wouldn’t love to steal you away from us. Curt plots ways to keep you busy so you have no time to consider moving.” “Honorary Professor,” I corrected her. Kathy smiled and then took a deep breath, her smile fading.

Love simply is where it is. My host loved Curt’s host, and that love did not die when the ownership of the minds changed.”

Most vile yet, their offspring — the next generation, which my kind nearly worshipped for their promise — had all too often been victims of heinous crimes. And not just at the hands of strangers, but at the hands of the caretakers they were entrusted to.

I think she is not talking about gun crime and shit but bundles of cells

difficult things we of the first wave had to conquer was the mating instinct. Believe me, the humans noticed when you didn’t.” She grinned and rolled her eyes at some memory.

“Did you eat bad food? You must report where you got it.” Her prying was very annoying. “I did not eat bad food, either. I’m healthy.” “Why don’t you have a Healer check? A quick scan — you shouldn’t neglect your host. That’s irresponsible. Especially when health care is so easy and effective.”

“Why are you here?” I asked again. My voice was a monotone. Restrained. I would not lose control again in front of this woman. “It’s been a while since I heard anything from you, so I thought I would check in personally. We’ve still made no headway in your case.”

It was dishonest of me. Shameful behavior. But I would not let the Seeker know that I was weaker than my host. For once, Melanie was not smug at having bested me. She was too relieved, too grateful that I had not, for my own petty reasons, given her away.

“We had no trouble in the South Pole. Of course, the North was another matter. It was badly mishandled. We lost the entire forest.” The sadness of that time echoed behind my words. A thousand sentient beings, closing their eyes forever rather than accept us. They’d curled their leaves from the suns and starved.

“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.

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.

“Did you have someone in mind?” I asked, my voice frigid with aversion. She grinned. “I’ve gotten permission to give it a try. Shouldn’t take long. They’re going to hold my host for me.” I had to breathe deeply. 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.

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. If you gave yourself to be a Mother, at least all that would not be entirely wasted. Why throw yourself away? Have you considered Motherhood?” 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’m going home. Don’t follow.” “I have to, Wanderer. It’s my job.”

She was living in a happier place in her memory, as if she were saying goodbye. It was a place she had never allowed me to see before. There was a cabin, an ingenious dwelling tucked into a nook in the red sandstone, perilously close to the flash flood line.

“Who built this place?” “My father and older brothers. I helped, or rather hindered, a little. My dad loved to get away from everything. And he didn’t care much about convention. He never bothered to find out who the land actually belonged to or file permits or any of that pesky stuff.” Jared laughs, throwing his head back. The sun dances off the blond bits in his hair. “Officially, this place doesn’t exist. Convenient, isn’t it?” Without seeming to think about it, he reaches out and takes my hand.

But his lips move to my ear, and he holds my face when I try to find them again. “It was a miracle — more than a miracle — when I found you, Melanie. Right now, if I was given the choice between having the world back and having you, I wouldn’t be able to give you up. Not to save five billion lives.” “That’s wrong.” “Very wrong but very true.” “Jared,” I breathe. I try to reach for his lips again. He pulls away, looking like he has something to say. What more can there be? “But . . .” “But?” How can there be a but? What could possibly follow all this fire that starts with a but? “But you’re seventeen, Melanie. And I’m twenty-six.”

The smile is gone from his face, and for one short second there is a flash of anger I’ve never seen there before. It makes him look dangerous in a way I hadn’t imagined he could. “This isn’t the kind of world I’d want to bring a child into.” The words sink in, and I cringe at the thought of a tiny, innocent baby opening his eyes to this place. It’s bad enough to watch Jamie’s eyes, to know what this life will bring him, even in the best possible circumstances. Jared is suddenly Jared again.

“Point taken.” If Sharon is still alive, it will be because her mother, loony Aunt Maggie, could give loony Uncle Jeb a run for the title of Craziest of the Crazy Stryder Siblings. My father had been only slightly touched by the Stryder madness — he didn’t have a secret bunker in the backyard or anything. The rest of them, his sister and brothers, Aunt Maggie, Uncle Jeb, and Uncle Guy, were the most devoted of conspiracy theorists.

She dragged me back in time, to a much, much older memory — a memory that had escaped her for a long while. I was surprised to realize that she had only put these memories, the old and the fresh, together recently. After I was here. That was why the lines had slipped through her careful control despite the fact that they were one of the most precious of her secrets — because of the urgency of her discovery. In this blurry early memory, Melanie sat in her father’s lap with the same album — not so tattered then — open in her hands. Her hands were tiny, her fingers stubby. It was very strange to remember being a child in this body.

Melanie was perfectly at home here in the middle of nothing. She knew the names of all the spiny plants around us. She hummed their names to herself, greeting them like old friends. Creosote, ocotillo, cholla, prickly pear, mesquite

I followed the wash at first, letting my body fall into its natural long-strided rhythm. It wasn’t the way I walked on the sidewalks to and from the university — it wasn’t my walk at all. But it fit the rugged terrain here and moved me smoothly forward with a speed that surprised me until I got used to it. “What if I hadn’t come this way?” I wondered as I walked farther into the desert waste. “What if Healer Fords were still in Chicago? What if my path hadn’t taken us so close to them?” It was that urgency, that lure — the thought that Jared and Jamie might be right here, somewhere in this empty place — that had made it impossible to resist this senseless plan.

Just think, she said, changing the subject, maybe we’ll see them by tonight. The yearning belonged to us both; the image of their faces, one man, one child, came from both memories.

But I’d already given her so much today that I was in no mood to listen. I drank when I was thirsty, which was most of the time.

At least there’d be some dignity in being taken down by that.” Melanie’s answering tone made me picture her rolling her eyes. Stop being a baby. Nothing is going to eat you. Now lie down and get some rest. Tomorrow will be harder than today.

With a slowly growing sense of alarm, I started counting. I counted twice. There were two more empties than there were fulls. I’d already used up more than half my water supply. I told you that you were drinking too much. I didn’t answer her, but I pulled the pack on without taking a drink. My mouth felt horrible, dry and sandy and tasting of bile.

Melanie had no patience for my personal crisis — she wanted me to get far away from that building as fast as possible. Her thoughts yanked and twisted at mine, pulling me out of my introspection.