Titus answered with bald honesty, “Yes. Every night.”

H’lim took a step closer, and Titus could make out his pale features behind the helmet. “Every night?” he demanded with a peculiar intensity.

“Every night when I can sleep, anyway. Tell me, H’lim, how does this thing work?”

H’lim retreated two steps, and Titus thought he could make out the negative movement of his head as he brushed the plea aside, his concentration focused elsewhere. “I don’t know, Titus. That’s the truth. I don’t know.”

In jerky stages, H’lim’s left hand went to the top of his helmet, as if absently trying to touch his forehead. The glove remained suspended there. Titus sensed aborted surges of Influence, as if the luren were choking down a fear/fight/flight response as he muttered, “Dreams,” as if tasting the word’s nuances for the first time. “Not aspirations or ideals. Something else entirely, some other biochemical function of consciousness.”

Titus offered, “Dreaming is the healthy way the human mind has of editing and organizing memories of the day’s events, and is psychologically vital to human health.”

Titus expected that was enough to dredge up all of the untapped associations lurking at the back of H’lim’s mind where Titus’s vocabulary was stored. It usually didn’t take very much to bring a word up into active use for the luren, but now Titus understood better what blocked the luren’s comprehension. Earth’s languages carved the universe up into chunks of very different sizes and shapes than the galactic languages. The genetics of consciousness. Earth’s physics talked of conserving momentum, mass and energy, not volition.

Before Titus could pursue that thought, H’lim dropped his hand, muttering in the luren language, “So that’s what Abbot meant.” The room filled with a beat of Influence that built from shock, to dismay, and edged into panic. Titus gathered his own Power. Knowing he couldn’t protect the humans if H’lim were to seize them as he had when he first woke, Titus focused narrowly on H’lim and spoke with all his own power, “H’lim!”

Somewhat to Titus’s surprise, it worked. The bright throb of Influence vanished and the luren turned to look at the cluster of humans by the door. “I’m sorry,” he began, then turned back to Titus, who was still standing on the black area of the floor. He) seemed to realize the humans had never been aware that he’d violated his word and invoked Influence. “Uh. I’ve just had a sudden insight. I’ve got to get back to the lab.” He started for the door. “Titus? Can you hurry?” He chattered to the scientists as he sidled through the crush. “You know how it is when you’re stumped and you take your mind off the problem. Besides, we were finished out here anyway.”

The crowd parted, and Titus caught up with H’lim, casting his own apologies about him as he went.

“What did Abbot mean?” demanded Titus when the two of them were momentarily alone in the airlock.

“Later, Titus.” There was still panic in H’lim’s voice, and the aura of Influence he held tightly about himself was like a clenched fist, white-knuckled and trembling. Titus had never felt anything like it. Two feet away, it wasn’t perceptible, not even after they’d shed their suits.

Emerging from the Biomed section, through security and into the main corridors, H’lim turned the wrong way. Titus caught up with him. “Lab’s that way,” he offered.

“I know that!”

Stung, Titus fell silent. He’d never heard annoyance in H’lim’s tone before, nor had he ever imagined a tone that conveyed both annoyance and fear. The two of them almost outdistanced the four Brink’s guards.

At his apartment, H’lim opened the door and paused while the guards glanced inside, hands on their weapons. H’lim never allowed the Brink’s people in, and had proved many times that he could detect unauthorized intrusion, so it was just a ritual. While Waiting, H’lim said, “Titus, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve got something on my mind I have to think about, and then I’ll want to talk to you. I’ll call you.”

One of the hardest things Titus had ever done was to reply casually, “All right. Abbot comes on duty in a couple of hours Meanwhile, I’ll be in the gym if you want me.” In his mind, he was already preparing a list of questions he was going to demand answers to. And he meant demand. This time he wasn’t going to be put off, no matter what. H’lim owed him.

H’lim went inside, pausing on the threshold for a moment as if puzzled, but closing the door gently behind himself and not looking back. Titus stood between the guards, rubbing the back of his neck and shaking his head.

One of the guards offered, “You didn’t do anything. He probably just realized he’d been wrong about an equation or such and he’s feeling like an asshole.”

“That’s the impression you got?” asked Titus.

“Scientists are always confident, then crushed. Then they get mad at having been wrong and snarl at everyone.”

“Really?”

“Shut up, Sid. Dr. Shiddehara isn’t like that.”

Titus grinned. “Thank you.”

“I was going to say,” said Sid, “you’re not like that.”

Titus waved a hand. “I haven’t been wrong about this job yet. Between the breakdowns, the theft, the war, and the haste, I haven’t had a chance to do the job right!”

H’lim’s door opened partway and the luren stuck his head out. “Titus. Come in. I need to talk to you.”

Inside, Titus sensed what had disturbed H’lim at his threshold, the odor of human blood-and something else.

“Brace yourself.” He led Titus to the bathroom.

Blood.

The walls, the floor, but mostly the shower stall were covered in blood, puddled, smeared, congealed, blackened, and reeking. Holding his breath, H’lim opened the shower door and Titus staggered back.

An arm clad in a black peignoir sleeve oozed fresh gore from the detached surface of its shoulder. Some legs and a head were stacked on a female torso.

Mirelle!

Titus felt his lips curling and trembling as they shaped her name and the word, “dead.” His gorge rose, and all at once he recognized the other odor. H’lim’s vomit.

Helplessly, he gestured for the luren to close the door, and backed out of the cubicle. H’lim shut the bathroom door. They stood, breathing hard, looking at each other. Titus barely recognized his own face reflected in H’lim’s goggles.

“It was Abbot,” said the luren. “She was dead when he brought her here.” He indicated the clean floor. “But not bleeding. He wants people to believe I did that. I don’t know what to do. Titus, you’ve got to help me.”

Dead humans don’t bleed like that. “Why would he want you accused of-this?”

“He’s deduced that once I discover that humans-and worse yet, Earth’s luren-dream, I will do everything in my power to prevent him from sending any message-especially not with your targeting data, and emphatically not with my too explicit message coupled to this planet’s position!”

Titus’s mind gibbered, Do something. Anything. Fast! He groped for the logic that had to be here, somewhere. “But you were on Kylyd when this was done. You can’t be blamed.”

“Do you think facts will override panic? You know humans, Titus.” He paced a small circle. “They’ll say I fed from her directly. Abbot knows Andre Mihelich discovered the similarity between natural luren enzymes and those of some leeches– hirudin, hementin, orgalase.” As H’lim’s fear grew, he lost the human body language and became truly alien. “Andre dubbed mine orgalentin and wrecked three Sepracor membrane reactors to grow a batch to keep the orl blood fresh. If Abbot stole it and injected it into Mirelle, it could have killed her and made her body a storage sack! That would account for the excessive Weeding after death-no clotting for hours, maybe days, without exposure to air.”