Its recent close association with the odd race that thought of this planet as 'theirs' allowed it to identify the feelings coursing through it in terms that they might comprehend: Anger. Disappointment. Frustration. Infiltrate. Observe. We will call you.

For so long now its one overriding drive had been to reconnect. To reach its ship, relax into the metal, cocooned safe and no longer so chillingly alone. To flow inside haven and mix, at last, with elements that would not scour its very being as the oceans of this world had done for untold years, as the inner juices of the vessels it borrowed did with every breath they took.

One desire. All it had cherished for years. Reach its ship, connect with others of its like and--go home.

Infiltrate. Observe. We will call you.

And at the last, it had achieved reconnection. They'd thought to fool it, these silly primates with their overweening pride and twisted plans. They didn't understand how easily its kind flowed past solid obstacles. They had truly thought they could imprison it inside walls of cold stone, colder metal. They'd thought—but it had never mattered what they'd thought. Its ship was important: the location of said ship not. There was no wall on this planet that could imprison it. Nothing but thousands of feet of salt and water could do that, and even that was surmountable, when it was at the last together with its ship.

In its eagerness to reunite, it had not bothered to be gentle as it left the vessel that had carried it here. The vessel had been left alive--but only just. It hadn't seemed to matter, at the time.

Infiltrate. Observe. Record. We will call you.

Nothing on this planet could keep it here. Nothing on this planet.

Exploration had been its mandate, when first it had come.

It had surfaced in the midst of an intergalactic war.

Infiltrate. Observe. Record. It wouldn't be going home. Not any time soon. It would not even be able to remain in the comfort of its ship for very much longer.

Infiltrate. Observe. Record. There wasn't any question of not obeying. To deny its orders would be to deny its self. And even after so many years on this planet, surrounded and infected with the minds of its inhabitants all imprisoned so completely within their own consciousness, it still could not do that. Could not even contemplate it.

Infiltrate. Observe. Record. We will call.

It hurt, to leave the ship so soon after regaining it. The pain of separation cut through its being like frozen filament wire, not allowing it to flow away from the agony, the white-hot ice tearing through it.

The sudden ache of emptiness was almost more than it could take.

It went on. How could it not? To deny its people the advantage its presence could give in this so vital of times and places was beyond its ability, beyond even its thoughts. It went on. Infiltrate. Observe. Record. We will call.

The vessel was still alive, if physically weak: safer inside one of those, no matter how it burned. Safer for it, at least: the vessel himself would not survive a possession that did not end soon. Perhaps he knew that: he struggled harder against its possession, this time. Harder and more efficiently, his strength backed by sheer terror and animal cunning, and guided by knowledge he had to have picked up during its previous occupation. For an instant, that interested it: never before had a vessel seemed to learn something from its use...

Infiltrate. Not that it mattered; curious or not, it could no longer afford the luxury to indulge itself in such spurious feelings. It tightened its grip on the vessel's consciousness, watched unmoved as it bled away to nothing. Freed of the struggle, it proceeded to establish control of mental and motor functions.

Infiltrate. Observe. Record. We will contact you.