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And much, much larger. But the same concept -- amphibian, not very smart, all that. We used 'em sort of like you used horses and other big animals. Beasts of burden."
"Hi-ho, Silver."
"I get that," Joshua said.
"I'm not surprised," I said.
"I wasn't trying to kill it when I was surrounding it, you know," Joshua said. "I was just trying to check something. I was seeing if I could control it like we control the frogs back home."
"I don't get that," I said. "What do you mean?"
"Back home, we get into their brains," Joshua said. "We extend a very thin tendril into their skulls, connect into their nervous system, and use them for what we need."
I pictured Joshua slopped on the head of a horse, filling the animals ears with himself. It was a disturbing image, to say the least. "That's terrible," I said.
"Why?"
"It's just creepy," I said. "Invading someone's brain to have them do your bidding." I did an involuntary shudder. "It's like a mental rape or something."
"Tom, they're big frogs," Joshua said. "It's certainly not any worse than whipping some dumb animal to get it to do what you want to do. Anyway, it's not like we take over the brains of anything that can think. That's a --" He stopped for a second and waved the tendril, as if to imply trying to think of a word; the frog shifted uncomfortably within . "--sin. A really big sin. Like murder or incest would be for you."
"What a relief," I said. "Because, you know, people never murder each other or commit incest around here," I said.
"Don't blame me for the shortcomings of your own species," Joshua said. "Here, look. While we were talking, I got into this guy's head. Now watch." He dropped the tendril to the ground and slid it back into himself. The frog sat there, not doing much.
"Where's the tendril?" I said.
"The operative phrase here is 'very thin,' Tom," Joshua said. "You're not going to see it. Here we go."
The frog sat there some more. After a couple of s
