Prologue

“Honey?”

No answer. My husband was watching a game on television. He was preoccupied.

“Honey?” I repeated, adding more urgency to my tone of voice. He looked over. Smiled sheepishly. “What’s up?”

“Marco’s fever is down. I think he’s basically over this thing. He’s asleep. Anyway, I was thinking of getting some fresh air.”

He muted the television. “Good idea. It’s tough when they’re sick, huh? Kids. He’s okay, though, huh?”

“It’s just a virus.”

“Yeah, well, take some time, you’ve been carrying the load. And if you’re going to the store“

“Actually, I think I’ll go down to the marina.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Ever since you bought that boat… I think Marco has some competition as the favorite child in this household.” He frowned. “You’re not taking it out, are you? Looks kind of gloomy out.”

I made a smile. “Just want to make sure it’s well secured, check the ropes and all.”

He was back with the game. He winced at some error made by his preferred team. “Uh-huh. Okay.”

I stepped back, turned, and walked down the hall. The door to Marco’s room was ajar. I paused to look inside. I almost couldn’t do otherwise because the other voice in my head, the beaten-down, repressed human voice, was alive and screaming and screaming at me, begging me, pleading <No! No! No!>

Marco was still asleep. Or pretending to be. A good-looking kid, but small. Already, in his early adolescence, the stamp of failure was on him. He was too sweet-natured and trusting to ever make it very far in a hard world. A world that would only grow harder for humans. Much harder, if I had my way.

I looked at him, one last time, as the voice in my head kept begging and begging. <Let me at least say good-bye, let me hold him one last time, let me kiss him, oh my God, no, no, don’t do this!>

But that was only a voice. The voice of someone who no longer had a say in what I did with this body, this life.

I left the house. I drove the car to the marina.

The wind was coming up. Earth really does have fascinating weather. So many different permutations. Blazing heat and brain-numbing cold; storms that bring violent winds or driving snows or rains so heavy they blot out all light.

I climbed out of the car and sauntered jauntily along to the boat, a small sailboat tied up halfway down the pier. Much bigger boats were tied up on either side. That was okay. I had all the boat I needed.

I climbed aboard and cast off the lines. I winched up the mainsail and took the tiller. I didn’t use the engine, not even for getting out of the marina. Anyone could guide a powerboat. It took skill to sail.

Sailing was one of the best things about being in a human. It was such a perfect blend of power and subtlety, bending to the inevitable and yet resisting great forces. Dangerous and exhilarating. You skimmed along between sea and sky, a part of each, trusting neither. I raised more sail than was prudent and stood out toward the open sea. I would be seen sailing. And seen to be carrying too much sail. That was important. Humans need someone to blame for every mishap. There is no room for random chance in the limited human cosmology. So I was providing them with the culprit: Me.

“She went out in bad weather,” they would say. “Carried too much sail. Amateur sailor. Weekend sailor. No respect for the sea.” That’s what they would say, and they’d blame the victim and move on.

In an hour or so, once I was out of sight of land, I would lower my sails and wait for a Bug fighter to come lift me off the deck. The engine backwash of the Bug fighter would capsize the boat. Or I might put the Taxxon pilot to the test and see if he could ram the low-slung boat. That would puzzle the humans.

Either way, my body would never be found.

The husband, the son who belonged to the voice inside my head, they would think I had died. The human woman named Eva, the husk, the human shell I lived in, would cease to exist as far as any human knew. I would be given the inevitable superstitious send-off. A ceremony, but there’d be no body to put in the grave.

Eva’s human mind would still be with me, of course. Still blubbering and weeping and begging, no doubt. But I had written the book on human infestation. I would have no difficulty controlling this woman.

I understood her, this mother-human. Understood her in ways neither she, nor anyone else, would ever be allowed to know.

The family had served me well, for a time, as I completed my knowledge of humans. But now I would have greater duties. Duties that would take me far from the dull life I’d accepted as a way to learn about our next conquest.

My time of lying low was over. The notice had at last come: I was promoted, leaping over so many desperately ambitious competitors to take the most powerful position short of membership on the Council of Thirteen.

I would spearhead the invasion of Earth. I would take charge of our greatest conquest. I would stand alone atop the Yeerk military hierarchy.

I was to become Visser one.