The Primal Connection by Alexander Dregon

beings. To him, it was his own reward.
    So as not to think there was no pleasure in his existence, however, he also enjoyed the segments of input that he could share with Terry when he enjoyed life. Good food, sex, any form of gratification that Terry enjoyed, anything that caused Terry pleasure, Charlie could experience to some degree. Given that he was unused to the intensity of the emotions though, Charlie needed to access only part of the total depth of the emotion to feel more than he needed to. It struck him as being simple logic not to let himself get too far into the well of human emotion for fear of becoming one of those of his people that became, for lack of a better word, addicted to the feelings they experienced, albeit second hand.
    Since most of his people were unable to interact with their human hosts, relatively few had the level of ability to influence their host actively. Even in the most extreme cases, they still couldn’t make a person act contrary to their nature. While they could suggest a host try something new, the host had to enjoy it enough to repeat it.
    This one was one of the ones that had gone too far down the path. He had found a host that suited his desires or, perhaps, had molded him into what he wanted through suggestion and manipulation. In either case, he was, in Charlie’s opinion, the cause of all this misery and too far into enjoying himself at the expense of both the host and humanity in general.
    In short, he had to go.
    Openly panicked now, the Chrliti tried to infiltrate each of the humans in the room in turn, failing at each attempt. His body slammed into each of them to no avail as Charlie’s presence blocked not only Terry from his invasion, but also the others as well, as long as Terry maintained physical contact with both of them.
    Terrified now, the Chrliti slammed into its former host, again and again. There was no impact, but each one jarred the creature nonetheless.
    Finally, weakening faster now, the creature latched onto its former host and tried to seep into him, fighting frantically to penetrate his neural network. The continual contact allowed Charlie the first chance he had had to talk to examine it before it noticed his presence. And since Charlie was in contact with the body the creature sought to inhabit, and the creature was not inhabiting anyone, he found he could talk to it directly.
    There were no surprises. He decided quickly that this was just another of his people, seduced by the pleasures of a world most of his people would have thought so primitive as to be unworthy of thought until relatively recently in their history. He decided with equal alacrity that the creature’s dispersion would be the best thing for all concerned.
    In the language of the Chrliti, Charlie faced his brethren and began to berate him for his choices.
    “There was no reason for this. There was no need for it. You could have existed without this. You could have done great things with your ability to contact that human. Instead, you let yourself be distracted by the simple pleasures this world offered, and then, in the ultimate act of selfishness, you found a perversion that suited you and exploited it to the point of being its own crime.”
     
    The Chrliti cried out in terror, dissolution beginning to undermine his thought processes. “You can help me! You can let me back into my host! Please! You can have your host turn him over to their authorities and—”
    “And what? You think me a fool? Once you have regained your strength, you will begin searching for another to play your games with. The time it may take you is immaterial.”
     
    The Chrliti implored him piteously. “You cannot allow one of your own kind to die! There are too few of us! When we are gone…”
    Terry felt the grin Charlie expressed even though he could not hear their conversation. It struck him there was a hint of sadism in it.
    “When we are gone, we will be no more. Then, the universe will see how it