“Two intelligent species on the same planet? Unlikely.”

“How dare we rule it out?” argued another. “In fact, are you absolutely certain both species are intelligent?”

“They both have hands.”

It was too much for Titus. “All apes have hands. Just get me the optical data-if you can.”

He made it a blatant challenge, and they redoubled their efforts to determine the capabilities of the optic nerves. But his questions started a new investigation. Could the two species interbreed? Were they two races, not two species?

Titus could not recall any mention of the subject. And so began a new niggling doubt. Suppose orl were intelligent? Suppose his ancestors had been brainwashed by their culture to believe orl were animals? In a twisted way, that was an encouraging thought, for it would mean luren had consciences and that modern luren in the galaxy might have, under the compulsion of conscience, shifted from being callous victimizers to neighbors who might not enslave Earth for food. After all, it had been centuries since Titus’s ancestors crashed on Earth and only about three years since this craft had hit the moon. Things could have changed drastically out there just as they had here.

From then on, he monitored the anthropology reports that crossed his desk, though his low security rating screened out details. If orl had been aboard Kylyd as crew, things had truly changed among luren. Abbot might be right to make contact now, but Abbot would be in for a rude shock when luren rejected the Tourists’ archaic callous attitudes.

Could any of the cargo containers aboard Kylyd hold a blood substitute? If so, and if it was present in quantities indicating they’d actually lived on it rather than on orl, then luren had indeed changed. Titus spent some of his time trying to find out.

Meanwhile, it became easier to keep away from Inea, for every time he saw Abbot he envisioned what he’d do to Inea if he suspected how Titus felt. His mind froze whenever Abbot was in the lab. He didn’t dare consider the fact that should he give in to Abbot, Inea would be safe. If he did dwell on that thought, he knew he’d soon be willing to believe any anthropologist who declared the orl were definitely crew members of equal status. Then he’d help Abbot send his SOS.

The sight of Abbot so distracted him from the lab’s business that once Shimon brought him some coffee and asked if he was feeling well. Alarmed, Titus pulled himself together and tried to act normally for the rest of the day.

That evening, he found himself pacing outside Inea’s apartment. His whole body could feel the dazzling pull of her apartment’s charged atmosphere. He stood staring at her door, yearning for the revitalization he’d once found there.

Dear God! I’m starving.

But he knew it wasn’t just the severely short rations he was living on. If this were merely physical hunger, anybody would do. Though he had felt surges of appetite with others, especially if they bled, only here was he overwhelmed with it.

He almost went in. With patience, he could seduce her.

She’d never hate herself for giving in to him as she feared she would. When she finally got it all thought through, she’d know he was no threat to humanity or to her integrity. She was right about him. She’d always been right about him, even though she knew barely half the story and still had at least one more shock coming. But, he told himself, one hand spread on the door, she’s now an astronomer. Obviously, she’s resolved her xenophobia or she wouldn’t be on this project. The mere fact that he was not entirely human wouldn’t matter after she was sure of his mettle.

But if Abbot finds out how much I care-

He would have to divert Abbot’s attention. He couldn’t resist much longer, and then he might not have the patience to seduce her. He prayed she’d come to him soon. He would loathe himself if he treated her as Abbot had taught him to treat humans-as he might have to treat some again soon.

He tore himself from her door and fled to the gym to work out in the centrifuge chamber, which helped a little. He got tired enough to sleep.

He had never failed to log the requisite hours in the gym, and made a point of visiting a Skychef refectory, using his meal card and cloaking the fact that he didn’t eat. He never quibbled about this use of Influence.

The day after his abortive approach to Inea’s door, he lunched in the refectory near his lab and was pitching his tray, considering how he might distract Abbot, when he turned to find Inea sitting with a group near the door. She had perceived his projection of the remains of a hearty meal on his tray and maybe even his illusion that he’d been eating.

Their eyes locked and Titus saw injured betrayal in Inea’s. He had told her he fed only on blood. She thinks I lied. He took three steps toward her, but she wrenched her gaze aside.

Such rejection emanated from her that he believed she’d accuse him publicly if he approached. He was unprepared for the chilling weakness that seized him as he left her.

He had never encountered anything like that aching chill before. How long could he stand it, and what would he do if he broke-run back in there, grab her by the shoulders and Influence her to accept him? No! No, I won’t.

He was standing at an intersection, still shaking, when Shimon accosted him with a new problem.

Abbot had created a grotesque array of mismatched parts, claiming it would replace one of the microcomponents they couldn’t get from Earth. Irritated by Abbot’s high-handed manner, Shimon still took every opportunity to challenge him. This only enhanced Abbot’s entrenched contempt for humans. Abbot had lived through the years when the contents of a modern desktop calculator filled an entire room.

It took all of Titus’s skill to persuade Shimon to give it a try. But in the process, he realized that Abbot must be spending so many hours fabricating items that he couldn’t be keeping Titus under surveillance. The idea was both a relief and a torment. There had to be moments when Titus could approach Inea safely-but he had no way of knowing when.

He redoubled his own efforts on all fronts, hoping once more that he could outwit and outflank his father. With luck, he might even locate another transmitter component. That would surely keep Abbot busy.

Titus could get along on very little sleep during the moon’s night, but as the sun rose over the horizon outside, even with all the protective dome and moon rock over his head, he felt a perpetual drag on his energies, yet couldn’t rest. For the first time, he unlimbered the magnetic field generator for his bed. It took some recalibration, but he finally found the setting that brought his peace.

Gratefully, he lay down, chuckling as he always did at the way legends are born. The superstitious, noting the restlessness of the vampire unable to return to the place where he’d awakened to second life, assumed it was the dirt of that grave that was needed. But, in fact, it was the exact magnetic condition of the place of wakening that was vital.

Abbot had once remarked that luren had a mobile life stage before First Death, and a localization thereafter, in the adult stage-much like some primitive sea life on Earth.

The anthropologists studying the sleeping quarters aboard Kylyd were going crazy without knowing that a few wires and a battery were all the “bed” a luren needed.

In daytime, Titus allowed himself four hours sleep in each twenty-four, but the shortened sleep period sharpened his appetite. And his supplies were running low.

He normally used a packet a day, but had cut it to a third so the six packets he had left gave him eighteen days. Surely Connie would get a shipment to him by then. But if not, he’d have to use Influence to create a string. He hadn’t done that in ten years, since the luren researchers had improved the humans’ own process for synthesizing blood. He’d lived on synthetics, with occasional deep contact with humans he truly cared for and who cared for him. He flinched from the thought of forced intimacy with strangers.