“I’d want to be left alone for a while,” said Kaschmore.

Titus knew she meant to isolate H’lim among the medics. Cloaking his words, he told H’lim, “Later, ask for me. Don’t let them keep you away from me.”

H’lim nodded, then asked Abbot, imitating their light cloaking of speech, “Will Titus be all right? I didn’t even realize you’re not really luren.”

“I’ll see to my son. And I won’t let them harm you.” Aloud Abbot said, “Dr. Colby has the right idea. We must show H’lim are friends. Carol, if Titus and I may be excused, we will see to the lighting panel from the ship is installed in a room for our guest.”

Kaschmore interjected, “Shiddehara will go to medical for a complete check-”

Titus threw off the daze that gripped him. “Oh no, really,” he protested with Influence, Abbot’s own power working with him. “H’lim didn’t hurt me at all. I was only surprised. I want to help Abbot make him comfortable.”

“Excellent idea. Kaschmore, install H’lim in the infirmary’s executive suite temporarily. Mintraub, help Nandoha adjust the environment. And Mihelich, I want you to see about lifting quarantine. A man can’t live in a sterile bubble, but we wouldn’t want him to die of a cold either. De Lisle, you’re to stay with H’lim and make sure there are no misunderstandings.”

Abbot had Titus halfway to the changing room door by the end of this speech. He stopped, looking back. “He went for Mirelle first, didn’t he?” he asked Titus privately.

“Yes-I-”

“H’lim,” said Abbot, cloaking, “De Lisle wears my Mark. Do you honor such?”

“Mark?” H’lim looked at Mirelle. “I see no-oh. That’s an orl-mark? It’s so faint.”

“It is my Mark. I expect it to be honored.”

Mirelle approached H’lim, getting a better grip on herself. “We don’t want you to be frightened.”

“I accept the strange customs of this place, and I honor your hospitality,” answered H’lim openly, then glanced at Abbot and Titus.

Cloaking, Abbot told him, “I’ll see that your needs are met. Wait for me.” He hustled Titus into the changing room. “What a mess! And I can’t even blame it on you this time!”

“But I thought you wanted him revived.”

“Only not yet. I wanted to drive Colby into ordering the corpse destroyed. Then I’d have shipped a sufficient part of the remains to Earth and we’d have revived him there. But I’ve been too busy to get in here, and didn’t know about the malfunctions. Mintraub should have caught it sooner!”

Inea and I kept him busy!

As they were showering, Titus said, “Well, now that he’s awake, it’s my place to provide for H’lim.”

Abbot sighed. “He can’t survive on what you’d give him. Considering your diet, I’m amazed you’re still on your feet, but don’t stop to argue with me now. You can’t surmount this hunger with that dead powder, so I’m giving you two of my-”

“No!” The disinfectant got into Titus’s mouth as he said that and he spat, gagging.

“Titus, when the shock to your system wears off, you’ll have no choice. He took more than blood.”

“There’s Inea.”

“What are you going to do, ask pretty-please?”

They toweled off and dressed in smoldering silence. Titus was beginning to feel rocky, but he wondered if it was just Abbot’s repeated suggestion. When he thought he had his temper leashed back, Titus said, “I can handle humans without Influence. I’ve been fending for myself since I left you.”

“This is different.”

“I know. I can feel it. I’ll take care of it.” God! What am I going to do?

“Look, I know how you hate killing. You’re going to be blacking out intermittently. I wouldn’t want you to wake up and find you’d killed someone who matters to you. I’ve got two stringers who-”

“Residents have been parenting for generations!” snapped Titus. “I’ve broken the habit of direct feeding, and I won’t go back, not under any circumstances. I don’t want your help, and I don’t want you teaching H’lim that humans are just orl.”

He threw up his hands. “H’lim’s my grandson! At least he has a proper respect, even if my own son hasn’t the sense of an orl!” He started for the door, then paused. “But if you kill carelessly, I’ll have to take you out. I’ll have to, Titus, but I don’t want to!” He stomped out past the Brink’s guard who still stood at attention, but stared avidly through the plastic wall into the lab where the “corpse” was now chatting affably with the living.

At the end of Biomed’s hall, a crowd of off-duty workers had gathered behind the security barricade. Their voices filled the area with an excited babble. Four Brink’s guards held a fifth tightly between them, and the prisoner’s hands were shackled behind his back. Titus recognized him as one of the guards who had been on the cryo-lab’s door, the one who must have exited when the lights went out. On the security station console, a monitor showed a broadcast from Earth, with a bulletin header flashing over an announcer’s image. Alien Body Reanimated!

“You shouldn’t have done it, Chip,” one of the guards said to the prisoner as Titus arrived. “That’s a major breach of security.”

“Security be dammed, what about infecting all Earth with some alien disease?”

Oft, shit! He’s reported H’lim’s revival! If there’d been the least hope that Connie could get someone through the anti-assassin security, there was no hope whatever that she could get anyone through a full-scale quarantine.

His eyes lit on Inea, almost invisible in the crush of humanity beyond the barricade. She spotted him at the same moment and began pushing toward him. He signaled her off to the left exit gate, a door made of spokes that rotated only in one direction. As soon as he got through it, the crowd surged toward him, inundating him with a barrage of questions.

He folded Inea into one arm and began shoving toward the edge of the crowd. “Dr. Colby will be out soon, and she’ll have a statement for you,” Titus repeated over and over.

They made it to clear air, and Titus staggered, gasping.

“You’re shaking. What happened?”

“I fathered him.”

“We won!” she yelped, kissing him. Then she bounced over to the lift call button and gave it a triumphal smack.

“Inea.” To his chagrin, she had to catch him and prop him against the wall. “Abbot seems to have more control over H’lim-that’s his name-than I do. If I’m going to keep Abbot from teaching him to despise humans, I’ve got to get back in there.”

“But you’re sick.”

“Not sick. Starving. Ectoplasm exhaustion.” The numbness was starting to wear off, and Abbot’s predictions were proving right-again. “I can’t-I’ve got to-”

“But the alien is all right? He didn’t go feral?”

“He’s fine-for the moment, but I’ve got to-”

An empty lift came, and she bundled him into it. “You’re in no condition to be doing anything. But I guess this means that everyone knows about you and Abbot.”

“No, no.” He explained the way Abbot had handled it.

“Abbot again!” Draping his arm over her shoulders, she half carried him out of the lift. The corridor was deserted at mid-shift, with most of the off-duty people waiting in Biomed and the rest glued to their screens. Dimly he realized it was his own door he was staring at, and Inea was digging in his pants pocket for his key.

The next thing he knew, he was slumped in the chair by the kitchen table and the microwave was bleeping. And then the smell hit him. Staggering to the sink, he grabbed the pitcher, sloshing half-dissolved crystals over the rim, and gulped the gritty mixture. Then he gagged and vomited into the sink. Gasping, he cried, “Get out of here. If you know what’s good for you, get out!” I’ve got to call Abbot.

Calmly, she refilled the pitcher and chucked it into the microwave. “Go rinse your mouth out, and stop telling me what to do.”