The Host

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of suicidal ideation and sexual content.

A Healer (a soul responsible for implanting souls within hosts) named Fords Deep Waters is in a procedure room with an unconscious human woman, about to begin an insertion of a soul. Fords is annoyed that he has an audience of Healing students and feels their excitement is inappropriate and disrespectful. His assistant, Darren, tells Fords that the spectators want to see a “wild human”—an insurgent without an implanted soul. Fords feels sympathy for the human and the pain she went through.

Fords admits that he fears for this soul, called Wanderer, and Darren reminds him that this soul is particularly brave and has lived seven lives on seven different planets. Fords begins the procedure. He cuts into the neck of the sedated woman, and Darren brings the soul from the cryotank where she has been sleeping; she enters the neck opening and attaches. Although the surgery is a success, Fords is regretful of what he did. He knows that the Wanderer will endure pain because of the pain the human woman endured when she nearly died.